For the 12 Icexpress athletes competing at the 2010 Nedbank National Championships for the Physically Disabled, in Port Elizabeth, this weekend, it was raining gold!
This group of arm and leg amputees from five different provinces working with Prosthetist and Team Manager Johan Snyders won 18 Gold, eight Silver, and two Bronze medals while breaking no less than three South African records during the three-day competition.
Former Springbok cyclist, 58-year-old Coert van Straaten, set the pace by breaking Oswald Kydd's South African record in the LC2 1 000m Senior Track Cycling event on Saturday, with a time of 1:35.97 seconds. Van Straaten, competing for the first time as an amputee athlete, continued to take Gold in the LC2 4 000m Track Cycling and Silver in both LC2 Road Cycling events. Fellow Gauteng North and Icexpress team-mate, Dane Wilson, won Silver in the LC1 18.5km Time Trial.
Twenty-year-old Jean Joubert took it a step further by breaking a second South African record on Monday evening in the F44 Final Men's Javelin event, with a distance of 37.09 metres, while team-mate Fred Furstenberg from Gauteng North took Silver. Joubert, now training at the well-known Maties Helderberg Sports Club for Disabled Athletes in Stellenbosch, beat Kwazulu-Natal team-mate Tyrone Pillay for the Gold in the F44 Discus event. Joubert also took the Gold in the F44 Shotput Men's Final to beat current SA record holder Dewald Reynders into second place, and Pillay into third.
Paralympic T44 sprinter, Arnu Fourie from Western Province, won the Gold in both the 100m and 200m sprint events - running World Qualifying B times of 11.68 and 23.78 seconds respectively. On Monday evening, however, competing in a special showcase event that saw arm and leg amputee athletes running side-by-side, Fourie ran the 100m sprint in 11.31 seconds for another Gold medal, and a new South African record in this class.
Up-and-coming T42 sprinter, Berno Haarhoff, from Gauteng North, missed the Qualifying Standard of 15.80 seconds for the 100m by 0.42 seconds. Haarhoff took Bronze in the F42 Shot-put event, with Silver going to team-mate Derik Schutte and Gold to Central Gauteng's Heugene Murray. Murray dominated the F42 field events by winning Gold in the Men's Final Discus and Javelin events as well. Eighteen-year-old 'Potchefstroom Sportsman of the Year' nominee, Derik Schutte, took the Silver in each of these events.
Icexpress results
Eastern Province Paralympic athlete, 27-year-old David Roos, got close to breaking the South African F46 Long Jump record. His distance of 6.46 metres won him the Gold and Roos continued to take Gold in both the T46 100m and F46 Triple Jump events; securing World Qualifying B distances in both these events.
Icexpress' two under-16 boys competitors, 13-year-old Muhammad Saib and 15-year-old Junior Mavuso, did their bit to secure the last four gold medals for the team. Saib won Gold in his F57 Shot-put event with a distance of 4.12 metres, which is not far off the current South African record of 4.98 metres. Mavuso won the Gold in the under-16 F44 Shotput, Javelin, and Discus events, bringing the medals to a total of 28 for the Icexpress Team.
Due to an unfortunate flight delay, SA's most famous Paralympic sprinter, Oscar Pistorius, was unable to participate in the showcase Relay event - where the fastest runners from various competitive classes compete. Icexpress' Derik Schutte, (an F42 Field athlete), stood in for Pistorius as part of the South African team on the night. The Icexpress team, consisting of Fred Furtenberg, David Roos, Jean Joubert and Berno Haarhoff, finished fifth in this event.
All in all an outstanding achievement for a determined team of amputees led by Johan Snyders from Icexpress Progressive Prosthetics - with not a single member departing from the 2010 Nedbank National Championships without at least one medal! About this achievement, the future of disabled sport, and prosthetic technology in particular, Snyders says: “It is an honour to be involved with such a talented group of competitors. At Icexpress it is always our aim to harness every technological innovation to promote the continued growth and achievement of our amputee athletes, as well as that of South African Paralympic Sport.”
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