Eyewitness News caught up with the 35-year-old who allow us to in on her sporting journey, and her highlights as she gears up for 2023.
Kat Swanepoel. Picture: Twitter/@TeamSA2024
JOHANNESBURG – Paralympic swimmer Kat Swanepoel has her sights on subsequent yr’s World Athletics Championships.
Eyewitness News caught up with the 35-year-old who allow us to in on her sporting journey, and her highlights as she gears up for 2023.
READ: Team SA at 2020 Tokyo Paralympics: by the numbers
The para-athlete has a progressive degenerative type of a number of sclerosis which she acquired in her fourth yr finding out occupational remedy in 2008.
“I’ve an auto-immune situation referred to as Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (PPMS), the place my immune system assaults my central nervous system, inflicting paralysis amongst different points.”
Her incapacity has different underlying points which aren’t as seen corresponding to being paralysed from the chest down, going blind in a single eye, and having her physique get progressively weaker to the place she now has no sensation or motion from her chest down, or half of her arms.
When fatigued she additionally struggles with speech as elements of her mind, optic nerves, and spinal twine will be affected by her illness. She has had a stroke and seizures aren’t unusual.
This, nonetheless, has not scaled again her sporting desires.
Paralympian Kat Swanepoel. Picture: katswanepoel/Instagram.
Swanepoel stated she has all the time been energetic, having began taking part in sports activities from a younger age.
“I was exposed to para-sport through my training as an Occupational Therapist and I started playing wheelchair basketball about a year after becoming a full-time wheelchair user and have since mainly been involved in wheelchair basketball, wheelchair rugby.
She has previously represented South Africa in both wheelchair rugby and wheelchair basketball. It was while she was playing basketball that she earned her South African colours – which was to be the first of three sports.
Currently her sports of choice is swimming – something she started just before the Covid-19 lockdown.
“I think I am one of the few athletes where the Covid-19 pandemic has actually benefited my career as I only started swimming in December 2019. The year delay of the paralympic games gave me a greater opportunity to qualify and prepare”.
READ: Leach, Swanepoel double workforce SA’s medal tally at World Para Swimming Champs
Swanepoel has represented South Africa on the Tokyo Paralympic Games. She additionally raked in medals and broke African data on the World Para Swimming Championships in Madeira, Portugal in June.
“I have several highlights in my sporting career, like wearing the green and gold the first time ever and singing the national anthem at my first world champs for wheelchair basketball and being awarded the best 2-point player and rookie of the tournament at the Asia-Oceania Wheelchair Rugby cup as the only female.
“And more recently smashing what I thought was possible and taking 12 sec off my then PB in the 50m backstroke final at the Tokyo Paralympics, missing out on the bronze medal by 0.5sec,” beamed Swanepoel.
She credit her sporting success to, amongst others, her coach – Theo Verster.
“One of the biggest role players in my team is my coach – Theo Verster and he has taught me so many lessons but two of the main ones are that you are worthy no matter what the result, and that we all have a story to tell.
“We are blessed to have the sporting stage as our platform for share this with others. I am also blessed with incredible teammates, colleagues, friends and family,” stated the paralympian.
READ: Sadie, Swanepoel bag silver medals at World Para Swimming Championships
She hopes to proceed competing nationally and internationally, in 2023 and past.
“My next focus is World Champs next year as this is when we need to perform so as to earn as many competition slots for SA swimmers for Paris 2024 as possible. And then the big one that I would love to be able to compete in is the next paralympic games in 2024”.
South Africa’s para-swimming champion Kat Swanepoel on the World Para Swimming Championships in Madeira, Portugal. Picture: swimsaofficial/Instagram._
#Swimming schedule this morning!
10:58 – Christian Sadie, Mens 50m Butterfly S7 remaining
11:31 – Kat Swanepoel, Womens 50m Backstroke S4 remaining #TeamSA#Paralympics pic.twitter.com/2zIahU9b3M
Team South Africa (@TeamSA2024) September 3, 2021