Swim your own race: Interview with Natalie du Toit, Paralympian

"It's important to swim your own race and not someone else's," says Natalie du Toit, South Africa's best known and most admired swimmer. As a disabled person, Natalie was unusually honoured at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 when she received the first David Dixon award for outstanding athlete of the Games, ahead of some 4000 competitors from 72 countries.

WR: Let's begin with your accident, and what happened there...

It was a freak accident. I was on my way from training. I train at Newlands Swimming Pool - a 50m municipal pool - from half past five to half past seven every morning. So, I got out of the pool to go to school, and got changed, and I was literally two minutes down the road from there when a car just drove out of a parking area into me.

I know what the girl looked like... I know everything that happened at my accident scene... I had a semi-automatic bike; you sit with your legs on the side and you change gears with your left leg. So, coming down the road, the girl pulled straight into my leg, not actually into my motorbike, and my leg split, like if you drop a tomato on the ground.

I landed in the road. All the swimmers were on their way from training to school - their parents had come to fetch them - and a lot of them were stopping off to see who it was. I was in quite a lot of pain, but when you have an accident like that, your body just goes numb. You can't feel anything; you can't do anything. You just sit there, and everyone else has to do everything for you. I couldn't really feel the bottom half of my leg. I could feel the three breaks in the top part of the leg, and I pretty much saw a lot of it...

WR: Presumably, an operation followed and an amputation...

Not immediately. An ambulance arrived, and in that time a policeman on a motorbike was on his way to my accident scene and he rode into the back of a Combi and went flying into a wall, just down the road from where I was. You can imagine, a Monday morning, twenty past seven; it's huge traffic, and there're two accidents, just down the road from each other.

The policeman got the helicopter because they thought he had a spinal injury. I got the ambulance. It wasn't good - I gave those medics hell! You can imagine: the roads are very bad... you're driving along... I told them I wanted to go to Constantiaberg Hospital.

And my mum arrived just before the ambulance did. I told the people around me just to take her away. She saw my face and that I was okay, but I knew she'd get hysterical. My coach, Karoly von Toros, was there and he took her away; he saw everything.

WR: What happened at the hospital?

I must admit, I can't remember anything, but I was in the ICU for a week, which for me felt like two days. They used a hyperbaric chamber - which is an oxygen chamber - to try and revive a piece of muscle I had, about 10cm long and 5cm wide, bluish in colour, not even pink; because my leg burst and there was nothing to cover it up with, and every day I went in for them to scrape away the damaged tissue. Eventually, five days later on the Saturday morning, they decided to amputate. So, I have an amputation through the knee and a titanium rod and three screws down my femur - and an artificial limb, a couple of them actually.

WR: Did you, at that point, think it was all over with swimming?

I don't think so. What I remember about it is a guy coming to tell me that they are going to have to amputate my leg. And I didn't know who it was, but I woke up obviously having half a leg, and it was swollen, and all you see is bandages.

I just wanted to get back in the pool again, because it felt like two days had gone by, and for me to stay out of the water for two days is a long time. All your swimming friends come and visit you in the hospital and I didn't really know how to deal with it. I couldn't handle it for someone to come up to me and say "sorry that it happened," because it had happened and you can't take it back. So I just used to open my sheets and show them my leg. Half of them nearly fainted, but it was the way I sort of dealt with it.

I just wanted to carry on with life. I just wanted to go out there and be myself again. I have always wanted to swim, and swimming was four hours a day, and it would still be four hours a day, no matter what.

WR: How soon did you get back into the pool?

I got back into the pool about three, four months after my accident. I had a big skin graft which had to heal and obviously the amputation side had to heal too. I also had to go through bandage changes, stitches to be taken out, staples to be taken out, that sort of thing. So I had to wait for that; otherwise I think I would have been in a lot sooner.

The first time I swam it felt quite strange. I used to tumble-turn and it would feel like my leg was still there, but when you push off there's nothing. It was quite amazing, but I was determined to get back in.

I swam for about an hour and a half the first time. I was swimming by myself. And eventually my coach said to me, "I think you should get out of the water now, because you're going to be very stiff tomorrow."

WR: How was your motivation affected? Did the accident weaken or strengthen your determination, or was it unchanged?

It strengthened it. Swimming by myself up and down the lane and seeing the squad training... I just wanted to get back with the squad, get back into that top lane again.

After a week I started with the squad, but in the first lane. It was not nice seeing little babies beat you; so I just had to train harder... get up with the guys... get up with the seniors... get back to the level I was swimming at before.

I am not as fast as I was with two legs, doing 400m individual medley, 200m individual medley, and 200m butterfly, which were my events before I had my accident. I was South African champion in 400 IM and 200 IM, that is, you do butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle, each in turn.

I realized those wouldn't be my events any more and that I would have to concentrate on longer distances, 800 and 1500m freestyle. Even before my accident I swam those distances, so they weren't new to me. Unfortunately, 1500m isn't an Olympic distance yet, but hopefully it will come within the next four years.

WR: When was the accident?

On 26 February 2001, the year after the Sydney Olympics. I narrowly missed the Olympics by two seconds in my three events... so it was quite tough, with the accident.

WR: At what point did you discover that you had swimming talent?

I must admit, till the age of six I absolutely hated water. I wouldn't even get into the pool at home. I'd stand on the top step and get out again.

But my brother used to swim at school and one of the coaches came to my mum and said that he was actually quite talented. About two years after that she took him to train for a club and, being the little sister, I was dragged along to go and watch my brother swim. I can't remember much of this, but my mum says that I basically got into our pool at home one day and started swimming. She took me to training, and I carried on from there.

WR: Before we come to the recent Commonwealth Games, give us a few of the earlier highlights in your career...

Highlights of my career would be, in '98, when I was fourteen, I became the South African champ for 400m individual medley, broke the South African record, and was chosen to go to the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur - and being part of the South African team from then on. Also the All Africa Games in Johannesburg, and many, many tournaments. I narrowly missed the Olympic qualifying times in 2000, which was also quite a highlight in my life.

WR: But you were still relatively young then, weren't you?

Definitely! So in 2004 I would definitely have qualified for the Olympics.

WR: Tell us about the Commonwealth Games in Manchester

It was awesome for me just to be there, to be competing again for a South African team. Everything was new to me: swimming with disabled people, and not just from my own category, but from all different categories. We all swam against each other and those that were closest to the world record got the medals. But I think just being part of that scene - the crowd, the British crowd, were amazing. Being South African, they were fantastic towards us, and me especially. I got a lot of media attention, which sort of took my mind off things. Manchester really hit me a couple of months after the actual games - to be there, it was fantastic!

WR: What medals did you win?

I won two gold medals: one for the multi-disability 50m freestyle and one for the multi-disability 100m freestyle. And then I made the final for the 800m freestyle (able-bodied).

WR: Where do you go from here? Do you have further aspirations?

Definitely! That's a message I want to bring across: you have to have goals, you have to have dreams. You have to work at what you believe in and you have to believe in yourself.

Swimming in the 2004 Olympic Games is a goal of mine, but I'm still a bit off the qualifying time. I have entered for the 800m freestyle in the able-bodied Olympics, but I might go into the Paralympics in Athens next year; there's a strong chance that I will. There's really no line between able-bodied and disabled swimming. It's just that I have a goal to swim in the able-bodied Olympics.

WR: When you are up against open competition, do you feel a disadvantage? And does it worry you?

Not at all. I treat both of them the same. You go out for your race and you've got to try your best. They're your opponents and you've got to race the way you train. It is important to swim your own race and not someone else's. There's no difference between the two: in the one I swim short distances and in the other long distances, and that's difficult to prepare for.

WR: Besides swimming, do you have time for anything else?

I have a boxer at home, she is nine months old, that's my little puppy. I spend quite a lot of time with her, taking her for runs, that sort of thing. Just to be with her; she's a very loving dog.

Otherwise I am a student at UCT. I am doing a BSc, majoring in genetics and physiology. It's gone quite well so far. UCT have given me a scholarship for this year; so that's what I do in my spare time.

And I do motivational speaking.

WR: Who do you speak to, and what do you tell them?

I have been to prisons, to churches, to companies, to schools, primary and high. My message isn't just about disability. It's about going out there believing in yourself, setting goals, having dreams. It is difficult to do: if your life is all the good things, and there are some bad things, to get through those patches and just to carry on with life.

That's basically my story. I don't prepare my speeches, but I have a set layout. So, what I talk about really is when I started swimming, and my life since then. And it hasn't been easy: in the beginning we had to pay our own coaches and sometimes you couldn't do that. And I missed my race at the Commonwealth Games in 1998. It was the first race in the competition, and I was busy warming up in the pool behind. All the ordeals you have to go through, training hard, going through the down patches - the speed bumps I call them; you have to go through the bad patches to get to the good ones.

WR: Has it ever occurred to you that your swimming successes might mean more in the world, with your disability, rather than if you were an ordinary swimmer?

I think that is true. I always say it had to take a bad accident to get people to realize that there are swimmers out in the world. We had Penny Heyns winning Olympic gold, but no one else was known for swimming. I was a top South African swimmer and no one knew my name, until I had my accident. So, I think a lot of good has come out of my accident.

I am hoping just to bring out the swimming name. Our swimmers always do well and mostly we come back from international competitions with the highest count of medals, but because there is not much money in it, it's not on TV, it's not on radio, like other sports. But, we get by, we don't have the greatest of facilities, we train hard, and we have to pay our coaches. And those that can't pay just drop out. We lose a lot of talent that way.

Don't you have sponsorships?

Just recently I signed up with Orbit Motors for a car, and Adidas sponsor my clothing, and Speedo my swimming kit. That saves a lot of money, especially for swimming suits, which don't come cheaply. For a suit which we call a sharkskin - it goes through the water very smoothly - down to your knees and off your shoulders, you can pay up to ten grand. But if you want to be out there with the top swimmers, you all have to race in more or less the same suits.

Hopefully we can get more sponsors involved. It's difficult because sponsors don't want to sponsor individuals, only teams. We can understand that, because in swimming you can't really show off brand names. We are allowed only one logo on our costume or cap, and it is limited to a certain size. There are a whole lot of rules like that. We want to get more sponsors involved with more swimmers, and not just with one swimmer out of hundreds.

WR: One day your swimming will be over. What will you do then?

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