Du Toit Spirit

One of Olympics' first amputee in an able-bodied swim race has this posted above her bed:

The tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching your goals;
The tragedy of life lies in not having goals to reach for.

This is about her:
August 18, 2008
South Africa's du Toit Fulfills a Dream Derailed
By JERÉ LONGMAN

BEIJING — Natalie du Toit carried the flag for South Africa at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Games. She wore a prosthetic leg, but few likely noticed. She has long awaited this moment, when she can stop being a disabled swimmer and start being just a swimmer again.

Wednesday, du Toit will participate in the Olympic marathon swim with no lower left leg or prosthetic assistance to help her kick through 6.2 miles of open water, competing as the first female amputee in an able-bodied Olympics.

Unlike her countryman Oscar Pistorius, who sprints on a pair of carbon-fiber legs, du Toit has provoked no debate about whether she has a competitive advantage in her event. There is no benefit to a lack of kicking power, symmetry and buoyancy when you make your living as a swimmer.

"This is something I've dreamed about since I was 12 or 13," du Toit, 24, said of competing in an Olympics. "I didn't dream of having a motorbike accident and losing my leg so I could go to the Paralympics."

She will participate here, then stay for the Paralympics in September. So will Natalia Partyka, a table tennis player from Poland who was born without a right forearm. Pistorius cleared a legal hurdle en route to the Games, but fell a second shy of the eligibility standard to run the 400 meters.

Du Toit qualified with a fourth-place finish at the open-water world championships in May. She and Partyka represent another sign that the Olympic movement, once insensitively restrictive, now more seriously embraces the ideal of equal opportunity and inclusiveness.

Women, once prohibited, now account for more than 40 percent of Olympic athletes. Disabled athletes have begun to participate regularly, even if the numbers remain small, long after George Eyser, an American, won three gold medals in gymnastics with a wooden leg at the 1904 St. Louis Games.

Neroli Fairhall, a paraplegic from New Zealand, competed in archery at the 1984 Los Angeles Games. Marla Runyan, a legally blind runner from the United States, made the final of the 1,500 meters at the 2000 Sydney Games and participated in the 5,000 meters at the 2004 Athens Games.

"We should be about getting as many people involved as possible," said Donna de Varona, who won two gold medals in swimming at the 1964 Tokyo Games and later helped to found the Women's Sports Foundation.

At 16, du Toit nearly qualified for the 2000 Sydney Games in three events. On Feb. 25, 2001, as she aimed for the 2004 Athens Olympics, du Toit left training one morning in Cape Town, headed for school on a motorbike, when she was struck by a car that pulled out of a parking lot.

"I've lost my leg, I've lost my leg," she began screaming.

Her left leg was still attached, but the bones were splintered, the muscles ruptured. "Burst like a tomato dropped to the ground," du Toit said.

A titanium rod was inserted to stabilize the femur in her injured leg. An artery was transplanted from the right leg to the left and she was given 24 units of blood. The leg was placed in a hyperbaric chamber in a desperate attempt to spur some knitting of the shattered bones.

Doctors considered harvesting muscle from her back and hips to try to refashion the leg. After a week, they surrendered to the inevitable. Du Toit's left leg was amputated at the knee.

Five months later, she jumped back in the pool. Her first workout exhausted her after 25 meters, but at least she was swimming again, more out of curiosity than determination.

"I just wanted to see what would happen," du Toit said.

She felt somewhat rudderless, especially in the breaststroke, which requires a snapping of the legs for propulsion. "I ended up more or less swimming in circles," she said.

Eventually, du Toit learned to compensate. Essentially, her left arm became her left leg.

In 2002, du Toit qualified against able-bodied swimmers for the final of the 800-meter freestyle at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England. This had never before happened in the modern era. Du Toit was named athlete of the meet ahead of Ian Thorpe. A year later, again against able-bodied swimmers, she won the 800 freestyle at the African Games.

A poem, hung on her wall, provided du Toit with laminated inspiration:

The tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching your goals;

The tragedy of life lies in not having goals to reach for.

Once, du Toit said, people seemed to notice her disability before they noticed her. Now that has begun to change. Still, there are bad days, sure. Du Toit can no longer run. In the pool, her times are much slower than they once were. Her upper left leg is about seven inches in diameter smaller than the right. It floats behind her in the water, withered, useless power.

Her right leg works overtime, cramping in long races. Exhaustion drops her hips low into the water. A chiropractor must balance her body, as if it were a checkbook.

"There are a lot of dark moments," du Toit said. "Everybody goes through flashbacks. Obviously, there are some days when I cry. But I try to remember that better days are ahead. You just go on. If you want to get there, you go on."

Open-water swimming requires less insistent kicking, though it does not adhere to the niceties of swimming in a pool. For one thing, there are no lanes. The close-quarter thrashing, like the water, can get rough. Group turns around marker buoys can resemble aqua-Nascar.

"In the water, I'm just like everybody else," du Toit said. "They wouldn't hold back, saying, 'There's a disabled athlete, I'll go slower.' "

That is all she has wanted. To be just like everybody else.