Pretoria - Team South Africa arrived home from the Rio Paralympics with fewer medals than they would have hoped for. They were not the all-conquering team of London, Beijing and Athens, winning 17 medals in total, seven of those being gold.
They were beaten by Nigeria and Tunisia for the title of the continent’s strongest team in the medal stakes. Yet, if the Paralympics was solely about competition, it would have lost its way.
The Paralympics are about making do, and then making do better than the other guy who has to make do. Their stories are what make the Games special. Those who lost limbs in Baghdad, in Afghanistan, who grew up warped by the radiation of Chernobyl, who crashed a motorbike, whose families refused to give up on them. Ernst van Dyk is one such man. A doctor advised his parents to give him up for adoption. They refused. Seven Paralympics later and the big man is contemplating an eighth after winning gold in cycling for the second time.
Team South Africa will evolve over the next few years. New heroes will emerge, some of them who took part in these Games. Ntando Mahlangu can only get stronger. It is staggering to think that he is only 14. Lucas Sithole was described by David Wagner, who beat him for bronze, as the future of wheelchair tennis. Ilse Hayes has retired after four Games, Fanie van der Merwe, the flag bearer, has called it a day. A new team will emerge for Tokyo.
Mahlangu had to shake off questions that he was the new blade runner. He won silver in the 200m for above-the-knee amputees behind the defending champion, Richard Whitehead of Great Britain. Whitehead milked the applause, but the world had seen a future champion in the making from the land of the south.
Charl du Toit took gold in the 100m for the cerebral palsied, with Van der Merwe just behind him 0.11 of a second later with bronze in the same event. Du Toit is just 23, and ran in memory of his uncle, who had passed away just two days before he went to Rio having been shot in a house robbery. “My dad always taught me the key to success is to enjoy what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life. That’s why I smile. I love athletics, I love doing this. My uncle passed away two weeks ago and I promised him I’d give him a smile,” said Du Toit.
“With all the trauma with my uncle being shot, it played a huge role. I’m so thankful that I could dedicate this gold medal to him. He was a big sports fan and my dad was a big sports fan and I knew what I had to do to give glory to God and to make my uncle proud. I knew what the job was,” said Du Toit, whose 11.45 was just shy of the world record of 11.42 he had set the day before.
Hayes left the Games with six Paralympics medals, three silver in the 100m, two gold in the long jump and a bronze in the 400m in Athens in 2004.
Amputee Tyron Pillay annoyed his teammates by playing Flo Rida’s My House in the Paralympic Village to celebrate winning bronze in the shot put. Dyan Buis left Rio with a collection of five medals from his two Games and was considering retirement. Hilton Langenhoven overcame disqualification in the 400m, by winning gold in the long jump and silver in the 200m. He may be back for Tokyo, but at the age of 33 his sprinting days may be behind him. Zanele Situ’s bronze in the javelin came 16 years after she won her first Paralympic medal in Sydney. Now 45, she admitted she had been surprised at winning a medal. Reinhardt Hamman’s gold in the javelin could be the start of a period of domination of the sport from the man from the Cape.