Rio De Janeiro – In the final game of his first Paralympic match, wheelchair tennis player Leon Els suffered a foot fault that threatened to put an end to his day. The foot plate on his wheelchair had come loose and was dragging on the floor like a McEnroe lip.
But there was no sulk nor fuss from Els, nor from his opponent and friend, Roland Nemeth of Hungary. The latter headed immediately to his bag and fetched a tool so the two of them could fix it together. It was done in 10 minutes after some banging and twisting. Els returned to the line to serve to stay in the match. At one stage it looked as though Nemeth had fixed the chair of the man who might be on a comeback, but it was not to be as the South African lost 6-3, 6-3.
“I think it was obvious that I was a little tight,” said Els, who lost to man he regards as his very good friend. “The balls went a little shorter than normal and I didn’t finish off the points that I created. I actually had my chances. Roland is a very good player. His world ranking doesn’t reflect how good he is. He got a wild card for this event for a reason. He put pressure on me. He has a very strong serve and he reads my serve very well.”
Els believed his “very deep and heavy forehand” and “fighting capability” are his biggest strengths. It is the fight in the man that saw him come back from a motor accident that broke his back and paralysed him when he was 18. He had been in a minibus on his way to a Craven Week warm-up match for the Leopards (North West). A man overtook a truck and hit their minibus head on. His paralysis is “incomplete, he has some movement in his legs, and he can move around with crutches if need be. His dream was to become a professional rugby player. He was a 400m hurdler, who took seventh in the national champs. He had SA colours in karate, colours in biathlon and cricket. Rugby was the sport the boy from Potch loved, though. Then it became wheelchair tennis.
“Of course it was hard after the accident,” said Els, who sports the big arms of a rugby player. “If you are a guy who can run the 400m under 50 seconds, and go from that to basically not walking. Before my accident I hadn’t really watched the Paralympics. You knew about them. But, my accident was 10 years ago. My eyes have opened to a whole new world.”
Els is now a professional wheelchair tennis player on the world circuit. He is not out of of the Games as he still has the doubles with partner Evans Maripa today. Lucas Sithole, the poster boy for wheelchair tennis, won his first round match in straight sets in the quad category against Japan’s Shota Kawano.
It was an average day for the South African team after the buzz of Kevin Paul winning the country’s first medal of the Games in the pool on Thursday night. Under heavy and uncertain skies, Sandra Khumalo was fifth in the single sculls, while the mixed coxed fours of Lucy Perold, Dieter Roslee, Shannon Murray and Dylan Trollope were third, less than half-a-second behind the Chinese boat. This despite them putting in the fastest final 250m of any of the teams in their heat. Both South African boats will be back in the water today for the repechage.
Former Paralympic medallist Shireen Sapiro was seventh in the 50m freestyle, Hendri Herbst fifth in the 100m backstroke, while Emily Gray took fourth in the 400m freestyle to earn a place in last night’s final, in an event in which Natalie du Toit still holds the world and Paralympic record, which she broke in Beijing in 2008.
Independent Media