Precious McKenzie

Precious McKenzie is a famous New Zealand weightlifter who was originally born in South Africa. He has won 4 Gold Medals at the commonwealth games for New Zealand but had also competed in the Olympic games for England winning many Gold Medals in the Bantamweight category.

At the age of three, Precious McKenzie had suffered chest complications due to fever, and was pronounced incurable. He eventually managed to survive, and his mother celebrated this by baptizing him Precious One.

That same year a traumatizing tragedy had hit the McKenzie family yet again. Precious’ Father had been killed by a Crocodile in the Limpopo River. This lead to Precious’s Mother having a drinking problem, and forced to give up her children.

Precious and his sister were fostered out by their mother and were treated very very cruelly. They were both victims of a woman who was witch-like and treated them with such neglect that the two children had suffered so many injuries and also were subject to malnutrition. Both of them grew no taller then 4ft10.

Precious and his sister had forgiven their foster mother, even though they had treated the children badly. Precious had said and I quote

“She was a woman who treated us so badly, she was the real devil…but my sister and I have forgiven her. No matter who it is, you have to forgive eventually.”

Precious had then been through so much and his athletic abilities had finally been recognised. He was seen by Franklin, a Father at the Catholic Mission, this led to Precious starting gymnastics and being trained by Father Franklin which helped himself have the courage to start a career of weightlifting. He competed in the Bantamweight category.

In the 1960's Precious had decided to immagrate to England in search of non-discriminatory oppertunities. By this time, Precious was married to a local coloured woman name Elissabeth, and was a father to two beautiful children, Vanessa and Sandra. He went ahead of his family to North Hampton, where he was confronted with news that had made Precious regret his decision. He was to work for five years before he would be able to represent his country in the Olympics. He was always thinking of moving back to South Africa but his wife and his children were encouraging him to stick it out and keep on going, even though they would be living in a one roomed flat where precious would be working in a factory.

Precious continued to train and compete and was attracting international responses, which led to him competing in the common wealth games and earning gold medals for New Zealand, also winning gold medals in the olympics, for England.
After all he had gone through, precious was finally recognised for his true abilities and not discriminated against because fo his colour. This man is really inspiring and is a real role model for children and adults all around the world.