[tt] NYT: South Africa's du Toit Fulfills a Dream Derailed

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South Africa's du Toit Fulfills a Dream Derailed
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/sports/olympics/18longman.html

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 probably noticed. She has long awaited this moment, when she
can stop being a disabled swimmer and start being just a swimmer
again.
  on 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, 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.

When she was 16, du Toit nearly qualified for the 2000 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. 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.