Mike Rowbottom
In February 2001, aged 17, Natalie Du To was riding a scooter back to her school in Johannesburg after swimming practice when she was hit by a car. Doctors had to amputate her left leg at the knee.
Du To was already an international swimmer - three year she had competed for South Africa at the Commonwealth Games in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.
Within three months, even before she was walking, Du To was back in the pool training for the following year’s Commonwealth Games in Manchester, where she would make history in terms of bridging the gap between able-bodied and Para swimming.
The Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games were the first to fully incorporate sports for elite athletes with a disability, and after the traumatic misfortune of her accident, Du To fully on what was, in the circumstances, propitious timing from a personal viewpoint.
Then 18, she won both the multi-disability events staged at the Manchester Aquatics - the 50 and 100 m freestyle.
She also made sporting history by qualifying for the 800metre able-bodied freestyle final - the first time that an athlete with a disability had qualified for the final of an able-bodied event.
At the closing of the Manchester Commonwealth Games, she was presented with the first David Dixon Award for Outstanding Athlete of the Games.
Commonwealth Games performances have often been an indicator of Olympic potential - and in the case of Du To, who swam without the aid of a prosthetic limb, the same held true in terms of Paralympic potential.
South Africa's Natalie Du To rule the pool in Para swimming at the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games, where she also reached the able-bodied women's 800metre final Getty Images
South Africa's Natalie Du To rule the pool in Para swimming at the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games, where she also reached the able-bodied women's 800metre final Getty Images
The year before the Athens 2004 Olympic and Paralympic Du To, competing against able-bodied swimmers, had won gold in the 800 m freestyle at the All-Africa Game as well as silver in the 800 m freestyle and bronze in the 400 m freestyle at the Afro-Asian Games.
She narrowly missed qualifying to swim in the Athens Olympics. But when it came to the Paralympics, she ruled the pool.
Du left Athens with five golds in the S9 category - at 50, 100 and 400 m freestyle, 100 m butterfly and, in the SM9 category, the 200 m individual medley. She also took silver in the S 100 m backstroke.
The South African was nominated later that year for the World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability award.
She also won six gold medals at the fourth IPC World Swimming Championships, finishing third overall in a race which included 36 males and 20 females.
On May 3, 2008, Du created more sporting history as she qualified for the Beijing 2008 Olympics by finishing fourth in the open water race at the Open Water World Championships in Seville.
She finished the Beijing 2008 women’s race in 16th place, 22.2sec behind the winner.
And then it was on to the Beijing Paralympics, where she secured five more gold medals.
Her last hurrah came at the London 2012 Paralympics, where she added another three golds and a silver to her collection before retiring.
Circumstance dictated that Du would be a unique figure in the establishment of Para-sports within the Commonwealth Games - a process that will see the imminent Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games presenting the largest integrated Para sport in history.
You must be logged in to post a comment.