Natalie du Toit: A Pioneering Disabled Swimmer

Competing in the finals of any Olympic event is an accomplishment that only a highly select group of elite athletes ever experience, so even finishing in 16th place in such a competition is a major achievement. Much more remarkable an achievement was the 16th-place finish in the 10,000-meter open-water event at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing by South African swimmer Natalie du Toit, a 24-year-old amputee who came in just 1 min 22.2 sec behind the winner even though none of her competitors had disabilities.

Du Toit had lost the lower half of one of her legs—but none of her competitive fire—in a motor scooter accident about a year after nearly qualifying at age 16 for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Back in the water remarkably soon after her accident, du Toit relearned her sport (strengthening her left arm to compensate for the amputation of her left leg at the knee) and won the 50-meter and 100-meter events for elite athletes with a disability at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England. She also became the first disabled competitor in the history of the Commonwealth Games to reach a final in an event that was not specifically for athletes with disabilities, the 800-meter freestyle. Having won five gold medals and a silver at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens, du Toit then won five gold medals again at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing, triumphing in the 50-meter, 100-meter, and 400-meter freestyle, the 100-meter butterfly, and the 200-meter individual medley events. She reached the final in the 10,000-meter open-water race in the Beijing Olympics by finishing fourth in the event at the 2008 Fédération Internationale de Natation Amateur (FINA; International Amateur Swimming Federation) World Open Water Swimming Championships in Spain. A sometimes rough-and-tumble affair that has been called “wrestling in water,” the open-water event made its Olympic debut in Beijing.