New life in New Zealand leads to teen winning national ice skating title

Friday, 2 November 2018

Dance skaters Isabelle Guise and Dashane du Plessis practise a routine at the Gore ice rink.

Having a son win a gold medal means a lot to Lyzanne du Plessis .

Southland's only ice dancing duo, Dashane du Plessis and Isabelle Guise, made their families proud when they won the New Zealand Juvenile Ice Dance title at the National Ice Figure Skating Championships in Auckland recently.

Lyzanne du Plessis clearly remembers the tough times her family endured when they arrived in New Zealand with virtually nothing.

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Southland ice dancers Isabelle Guise and Dashane du Plessis with the gold medals they won at the National Ice Skating Championships in Auckland recently.

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Dashane was 15 months old when he arrived with his mother from Cape Town 15 years ago.

Lyzanne's husband, Hannes, came out 10 days earlier and all three stayed initially with his cousin and wife on a Waikato dairy farm.

'We were living in poverty [in South Africa],' Lyzanne said.

'We arrived in Auckland in the middle of the night with $20 and a suitcase with baby clothes and toys in it. The clothes I had were the ones I was wearing.'

Sixteen-year-olds Isabelle Guise and Dashane du Plessis train on the ice in Gore.

'We got work as farm hands and moved our way up [in the dairy industry],' Lyzanne said.

They are now share milkers in Otahuti.

'We are incredibly grateful to New Zealand … this country has given our son hope and a future,' Lyzanne said.

'To see our son represent his new country would be a dream come true for us.'

With help from coach Shane Speden, of Gore, Dashane and Isabelle put in many hours of training to be in good shape for the national championships. After finishing the last of three dances, both knew they had done their best.

'I felt good afterwards … they were solid efforts,' Isabelle said.

Practising dance moves 'over and over again' was the only way to perfect them, she added.

Dashane said timing, footwork and presentation were key areas ice dancers had to be good at.

Both 16-year-olds live on dairy farms in western Southland, are home schooled and make four trips a week to the Gore ice rink.

Dashane and Isabelle will travel to Dunedin on Wednesday to perform in qualifying tests that will enable them to compete overseas.

Dashane du Plessis holds Isabelle Guise in a dance move during a practise session at the Gore ice rink.

They became a dance combination 18 months ago and last summer decided to set a goal - to win a national title.

Lyzanne applauded Speden's coaching skills.

'He took them from nothing to champions in nine months.'

On practise day, Dashane and Isabelle meet in Winton to car pool to Gore. Their mothers take turns at driving them and both parents bring a rug or thermal blank to wrap up in during the three or four-hour sessions.

Sometimes Lyzanne fills in time at the rink by working on her small online business that she started to generate money for Dashane's ice dancing expenses. The business sells health food supplements.