Disabled Swimming
NOTE: Disabled swimmers from South Africa have set numerous world records, but the early (pre-1992) history of paraplegic/disabled sports in South Africa is largely unknown to the public today (2024), Even the results from the Stoke Mandeville Games (1948-59) also do not seem to exist, although some newspaper archive do contain published results of paraplegic/paralympic sports.
This not in any way a definitive history of disabled swimming in southern Africa. Much more research is required to capture the stories of these brave athletes.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Natalie du Toit (above) proved that disabled swimming was part of the sport of competitive swimming at the highest level when she competed against able-bodied swimmers in the Olympic 10km open water marathon event. Natalie won 13 Paralympic gold medals (2004 - 2012).
Since paraplegic athletes (paralysed in lower limbs) started to participate in competitive sports in the late 1940s, South Africans and Rhodesians have achieved considerable success, particularly in swimming. During the sports boycott era, Rhodesians continued to compete in South African events as a province, including paraplegic sports.
Both countries were allowed to continue participating in international paraplegic sporting events for much longer than their able-bodied countrymen. South Africa won 5 medals in swimming at the 1976 Paralympic Games in Toronto, although the Canadian government refused to grant visas for the Rhodesian Paralympic team to attend the 1976 Toronto Paralympics.
In 1972 Willie Bosch won the gold at the Paralympic Games held in Heidelberg, West Germany and set a new world record, and Hester du Preez achieved the same at the 1978 South African Games in Bloemfontein.
Damon Kendrick(below) lost a leg due to a shark attack, yet he still represented Western Province as a provincial-level diver in the 1970s, and still does open water swimming races in 2024.
In 2000 Terence Parkin, a deaf swimmer from Natal, won a silver medal in the 200m IM at the Sommer Olympic Games in Sydney.
In 2020, Alwyn Uys is a paraplegic athlete who swim from Robben Island to Bloubergstrand. (Click here to see a trailer for his movie - Against All Odds: The Alwyn Uys Story. In March 1977 Coreen Swanepoel of Stellenbosch was the first paraplegic swimmer to achieve a Robben Island crossing.
The Netherlands, the host country of the 1980 Summer Paralympics, adopted a motion declaring South Africa's participation in the 1980 Games "undesirable". South Africa was subsequently absent from the Paralympic Games until 1992.
Tadhg Slattery competed as part of the South African Paralympic swimming team at six Paralympic games. His first games in 1992 gave him his first Paralympic gold medal in the 100m breaststroke in a world record time.
SOUTH AFRICAN SPORTS ASSOCIATION FOR PARAPLEGICS AND OTHER PHYSICALLY DISABLED
March 1979
Sport vir gestremdes staan onder beheer van die Suid Afrikaanse Sport Assosiasie vir Parapleëen en ander Liggaamlik gestremdes. Sport soorte ingesluit word genoem, die geskiedenis van sport vir gestrem des word kortliks geskets en die prestasies vein Suid-Afrikaanse sportlui op die gebied word bespreek. Kom petisie met normale sportlui vind nou ook plaas.
Sport for the disabled in South Africa is governed by the National Council of the South African Sports Association for Paraplegics and Other Physically Disabled.
Competitors from the Southern Transvaal, Western Transvaal, Northern Transvaal, Orange Free State, Griqualand West, Eastern Province, Natal, Western Province, South West Africa, Rhodesia, Transkei and Ciskei take part in the annual National Championships, where they compete in the following sports: archery, field events (discus, shot-put, javelin, precision javelin, club-throwing), swimming, weight-lifting, table tennis, basketball, snooker, bowls, wheelchair races (100m, 400m, 800m and 1 500m) and wheelchair slalom. In January 1977 the National Association of Blind Bowlers was accepted as an affiliated member.
In 1965 the Association registered its emblem with the Bureau of Heraldry. It depicts a springbok leaping through the wheel of a wheelchair and the badge is awarded to anyone selected to represent South Africa at an international meeting.
Sport for athletes with an impairment has existed for more than 100 years, and the first sports clubs for the deaf were already in existence in 1888 in Berlin.
It was not until after World War II, however, that it was widely introduced. The purpose of it at that time was to assist the large number of war veterans and civilians who had been injured during wartime.
In 1944, at the request of the British Government, Dr. Ludwig Guttmann opened a spinal injuries centre at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Great Britain, and in time, rehabilitation sport evolved to a recreational sport and then to competitive sports.
On 29 July 1948, the day of the Opening Ceremony of the London 1948 Olympic Games, Guttmann organised the first competition for wheelchair athletes which he named the Stoke Mandeville Games which was a milestone in Paralympic history. They involved 16 injured servicemen and women who took part in archery.
Paraplegic sport (which the Paralympics is named after) grew after that 1948 event. Beginning in 1960 during Summer Olympic years, the International Stoke Mandeville Games (ISMG) were held in the same host city as the Summer Olympics. These particular editions of the Games were retroactively recognised as being the first four Paralympic Games. The Games were otherwise hosted in Stoke Mandeville in all other years. Beginning in 1976, the Paralympic Games began hosting events for amputees and the visually impaired; at this point, the Paralympics were no longer credited as being editions of the ISMG, but the ISMG went on hiatus during Paralympic years.
After the Paralympics expanded to include events for disability classifications other than wheelchairs, the ISMG for wheelchair athletes continued to be hosted annually in Stoke Mandeville, and later other countries, in all non-Paralympic years.
1949 saw the second of the Stoke Mandeville Games, in which 37 individuals participated. In addition to a repeat of the previous year’s archery competition ‘net-ball’ was added to the programme for these Games. This was a kind of hybrid of netball and basketball played in wheelchairs and using netball posts for goals. Only one team fielded a woman in their team, 21-year-old Margaret Harriman (neé Webb), who at age 19, she sustained a fractured spine in a tractor accident. She emigrated to Rhodesia and later to South Africa, becoming one of the most successful Paralympians between 1960 and 1996.
An unnamed patient from Southern Rhodesia participated in the 1951 event, and a similarly anonymous South African competed in 1953 when swimming was also added to the list of sports at the Games.
In 1955 South Africa sent a team and in 1956 won its first Stoke Mandeville Games swimming gold medal when Neville Cohen won the breaststroke final.
In 1962 the South African Paraplegic Games Association was established. It was only for persons with spinal cord injuries.
South Africa first competed in the International Stoke Mandeville Games, which in an Olympic year became known as the Paralympic Games, in 1962.
The Paralympics concept was introduced in South Africa in 1963 and was included in the first South African National Games held in Johannesburg in March 1964.
In November 1964 South Africa sent a team to the 1964 Paralympic Games, as they were now called. Paradoxically, South Africa began to compete at the Paralympics after being barred from participating in the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964. South African Gordon Popperwell (Western Province) won a silver medal in breaststroke, while in the women's events, A. Somerset won a gold and two silver medals. N. Thesen won a bronze medal. Rhodesians Lynette Gilchrist and Leslie Manson-Bishop won 6 medals of which 5 were gold.
1968 - Karen Steele of Natal paraplegic swimmer at the South African Championships in Kimberley.
Willie Nel broke two world records at the 1968 South African Paraplegic Championships in Kimberley and then won a gold medal at the 1968 Paralympic Games held in Tel Aviv. David Lewis, a pupil at the Elizabeth Conradie School in Kimberley, also swam in these Paralympic Games, winning two medals. Despite setting two world records at the Games in Kimberley, Riana van der Schyff did not get to swim at the Paralympics. At the SA Paraplegic Championships in 1969, Riana set three new world records!
The 1972 Paralympic Games, the fourth edition of the Paralympic Games, were held in Heidelberg, West Germany, from 2 to 11 August 1972, two weeks before the Summer Olympics held in Munich. South African swimmers, four male and five female, won a total of 18 medals - eight of which were gold. The Rhodesians won 9 medals - two gold - and Sandra James set a world record. She also won a gold medal in the Women's javelin throw.
The outstanding athlete of these Games was Riana van der Schyff from South Africa who won four gold medals in swimming and two silver and a bronze medal in athletics field events (discus, javelin and shot put). Willie Bosch (1) and M. van der Riet (2) won gold in the men's swimming.
1976 was the last time the Springbok Paralympians were allowed to compete at the Games, even though the Rhodesians were refused visas to enter Canda. M. Schaefer won bronze in women's backstroke while M. van der Riet (first names unknown) won two silver medals and a bronzem with J. Crouse also winning a second place silver medal.
The Rhodesians were allowed back to compete in 1980 - as Zimbabwe - winning 4 medals in swimming.
South African Medallists Paralympics 1964 - 1976
24 Oct 2000: Darren Leach (bronze)of Great Britain, Ebert Kleynhans (gold)of South Africa and Yoshikazu Sakai (silver) of Japan during the medal presentation for the Mens 100M Freestyle S12 Final held at Olympic Park during the Sydney 2000 ParalympicGames, Sydney, Australia.