ING

Picture: John Woodroof

A Johannesburg woman has told how a fellow member at a Virgin Active gym called her a “bloody k*****, a cockroach and a selfish b****” at a spinning class.

This, said Liz Hleza, had happened in full view of the instructor, who continued the class without defusing the situation.

Although the man apologised to her on Saturday in a meeting convened by the club, and Hleza accepted the apology, she said she wanted her story to be told “because… there are still people like that out there”.

It started on the morning of December 31 at Virgin Active Morningside in Sandton.

Hleza, who is in her fifties, said she had been enjoying the music and shouting “yebo” as the instructor put them through the gruelling exercise.

However, a man in front of her was not happy about her shouting. He got off his bicycle and confronted her.

“I was so scared and thought he was going to hit me, he was very angry. He said I should keep quiet and kept saying ‘this bloody k*****, you k*****’. He was pointing his finger at me. He said ‘bloody c***’ and that I was a selfish b****. He also told me that I was born walking on four legs with a tail, and I should go back to the bushes where I belong and make that noise there.”

Hleza said she had not returned the insult.

“Thank God I did not lower myself to his level. But his friend sprayed me with water from his squeeze bottle. He said: ‘Shush, can’t you see you are upsetting my friend?’ I told him that I was also paying membership there.”

After the class, Hleza went to the manager on duty to complain. When the manager called the two men to her office, they refused to go.

The man, she said, swore at her again. “He said: ‘You bloody k*****, you are a cockroach and next time I come to the gym I will bring Doom to spray you with’.”

Hleza said someone from the gym’s disciplinary committee had kept asking her whether she was sure of her facts because the man who she claimed had insulted her was a lawyer. If it was found that she was lying, her gym contract would be terminated.

Hleza said she was not happy about the way management had handled the situation. She said she had been told that the man had apologised.

The club then organised a meeting two weeks ago where the man was to apologise.

However, he said he wouldn’t be able to make it.

“On that Saturday, he saw me in the class, but did not even say anything to me. After the class, he just left,” Hleza said.

Virgin Active’s Karen Gordon said that the health club franchise did not tolerate discrimination and that “the member who allegedly misbehaved has also received formal correspondence… including a final warning”.

Nobody would be compelled to make an apology, she said, but “Virgin Active has made every effort to arrange for them to meet”.

This they did on Saturday.

Of the instructor’s failure to intervene, Gordon said that he had said he could not hear the verbal exchanges.