Dreams carry Natalie Du Toit to Beijing

Dreams carry Natalie Du Toit to Beijing – Olympics News – Telegraph

She has made history by becoming the first amputee to qualify for the Olympic Games, an achievement that defies scientific logic. While lawyers still argue over whether her compatriot, Oscar Pistorius, gains an unfair advantage on the track over his able-bodied rivals through his prosthetic blades, Du Toit’s incredible feat is to have finished fourth in a two-hour race in choppy water, and with swimmers bumping and boring into each other, with only half the leg-propulsion of her rivals.

Unlike Pistorius, Du Toit does not wear a prosthetic leg in races and is therefore free to compete in Beijing. It is akin to competing in a sculling race with one scull or a kayak race with a single-bladed paddle. Her secret? Well, there is no secret, she says, no physical or technical trick to compensate for the loss of a limb. Just hard work and obsessive determination. “There’s no real compensation. You just do the hours in the swimming pool, you do the hours of racing and you do the hours of mental preparation. You just go out and give it everything. I don’t even think of one leg, two legs. When you’re racing in an able-bodied competition you’re all equal and you go out there and try your best, and that’s what counts.

That’s impressive.