On another hot Parisian day there was no place to hide for Shaun Anderson. Not from the sun, not from the level of competition he was facing, or the fact that he was the first Team SA in action at the 2024 Paralympics.
Fortunately, the charismatic Johannesburger – “my mind feels 20, my body feels 80 and my ID book says I’m 51” – rose to the occasion. It was around noon, having started at 9am with 12 other Paralympians that his trusty long-time coach Barbara Manning helped him back away his arrows and head for some shelter under the trees at the Invalides venue which staged the men’s W1 individual ranking round.
For those of you who watched the men’s and women’s marathons on TV, the archery is a flighted arrow away from where those races finished. Thursday’s seeding qualification was at the warm-up area and Sunday’s knockouts is at the 8 000-seater arena a few metres away.
There, in the 1/8 stage, Anderson will come up against Yigid Aydin, whose total of 640 points placed him ninth, against the 638 of the South African who slotted in at eighth. Anderson had totalled 637 points at Tokyo 2020.
Afterwards, with an ice-pack on his painful right wrist, wearing a floppy hat and still covered in sun block. Anderson spoke with humility and pride at what he’d achieved. In a nutshell: he produced his finest performance out of South Africa, doing that with a wrist that needs treatment – he calls it “maintenance” – and is all set for what is the main event, the start of the knockout stages.
“Today’s performance went well. We had a goal. I broke my PB at an international level so I’m obviously happy about that. It’s now in the record books. But now the job starts across there,” he said, pointing to the main arena.
“I’m lying in a nice position. So that job is done. The job that I wanted to do, I did. Everybody wants to end the top four but when I realised I’m falling out of the bracket a bit, I said to myself, if I can get eighth, ninth place, then it’s fine. The bracket system works a little bit in my favour.”
Anderson was 31 when he had his left arm amputated at the elbow following a motorcycle accident. Then in 2017, a year after his first Paralympic appearance in Rio de Janeiro, a family fishing trip ended badly when a wave crashed into the boat Anderson was steering, tipping it over and trapping him underneath.
“I basically started drowning,” he told BBC Sport Africa. “I was under the boat, they say for about four and a half minutes. I don’t remember much after that. I remember waking up and not having feeling in my legs.”
Damage to his back means Anderson is now paralysed from the waist down. “I haven’t put my head underwater since my accident. I haven’t been on a boat since my accident. I don’t like water whatsoever.”
Anderson had 16 perfect 10’s in his attempts and will be looking to up that total in Sunday’s match-up against the Turk.
“Tomorrow’s a rest day. I’m going to try and push my coach and the doctors to let me shoot on Saturday but Sunday’s the big day. I like the atmosphere, the fact that the stadium is fully booked, it’s going to be unbelievable.”
Anderson, at his third Games, feels the love from back home. “Must have had about 150 WhatsApps from people I didn’t know, and it’s been the support from back home has really been amazing. I’m humbled. I’m really humbled. This has been my best Games ever. The support from from people back home, the staff here, the media, everybody, has just been so humbling.
“We feel like superstars. We already feel like medal winners. So at the end of the day, the medal is the bonus and that’s what we all want and that’s what we’re going to work for.”
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