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  • Writer's pictureTeam SA

The making of a Paralympic gold medallist

More than an hour after having the Paralympic discus gold medal placed around her neck, Simone Kruger was still doing interviews and posing for selfies. Standing on the concourse of the Stade de France stadium, she had already postponed a scheduled MRI scan and by her own admission “hadn’t looked at her phone much” since the night before, "except for a few Instagram stories”. When you’re 19-year-old that in itself is astonishing.

It could also be termed self-discipline. And the teenager who is world champion, world record holder, Paralympic champion, Paralympic world record holder, has discipline in bucketloads. For eight years she and her father Andries did not miss one Sunday in making the two-hour round trip from their home in Pretoria to that of her coach Pierre Blignaut.

Now there is no more Oom Pierre. He passed away last December and Kruger’s eyes became moist when she faced media and dedicated her women’s F38 discus Paralympic gold medal to him.

He is missed by all, as a person, as a brilliant coach. Andries has taken up the full-time coaching duties, having shared them previously. Yet, neither could have been prepared for the Paris experience.

Kruger takes off her medal. Then, noticeably, she rubs the back of her neck. “It’s the ribbon, feels like it’s cutting into me.” Indeed, there’s a red mark of irritation at the back of her neck.

She passes it to me. The first thing you notice is the weight. It’s surprisingly heavy, catches you off guard. It’s 529 grams in weight – the gold medals at London at Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2000 were 188g and South Africa’s famous “awesome foursome” of 4x100m swimmers were awarded gongs in Athens weighing 148g. In Paris it’s slightly heavier than walking around with a tub of Rama hanging from your neck, although in this case it’s an original piece of the iconic Eiffel Tower, quite literally.

Understandably, this special gold medal will take pride of place in Simone’s – pronounced sim-o-nay – already bulging cabinet. “When I get home I’m going to have to re-arrange things. I have a lot of schools’ medals that I’m going to have to sort out to make space for this. I’m worried though that it will be too heavy for the cabinet!”

Perhaps the best advice would be for the teenager – she only turns 20 in January and is currently on a gap year – to invest in a new cabinet. After all, she has a minimum of two more Games in her locker and she is already a two-time Paralympian. And the R400 000 incentive from Sascoc is going to come in handy.

Life will start speeding up for the youngster who has her eye set on studying biokinetics. At age 16 she competed in Tokyo where she finished fifth in the final with a distance of 31.51m. There, Na Mi won gold and the Kruger of Paris 2024 threw further. Having said that, conditions in Tokyo were poor, with the rain having arrived and not even a towel to dry her hands to apply a grip.

Now, three years later in Paris, Kruger sent the flying saucer 38.70m, just 12cm short of her own world record and the second furthest it’s ever been launched by a F38 athlete. “We peaked last night,” a relieved Andries said. “Over the past fortnight we’d have some bad sessions where we haven’t clicked. But you only have to click when it counts!”

The F38 discus class and depth is becoming stacked and there were 14 throwers in the final. Nearly half the Paris field produced distances that would have won a medal in Tokyo. Here, the medals were contested by athletes who were separated by 34cm. Indeed, Kruger’s winning margin was 6cm. “Any of us three could have won gold,” the South African starlet admitted in the immediate aftermath.

“But the training and hours paid off. In training we work on a points and rewards system whereby we try to beat each throw and then apply a rewards system to that. So, I started with 37.69m, then 38.35m and then 38.70m which fortunately was enough to win gold.”

For clarity, Kruger’s classification comes as a result of a stroke she suffered while in the womb and left her with cerebral palsy. “The front-left side of her brain was permanently damaged and all the muscles on the right-hand side of her body were damaged,” says Andries, who has detailed the story hundreds of times. It also explains why she throws left-handed.

“We had to get experts in to help the muscles reconnect and form new routes to another part of her brain. We dealt a lot with Carina Eksteen at Tuks and Deon Buhrs at Proffessa Health Services and they were amazing.”

Motivated by the success of her sister, Kruger started her own athletics journey at 12 – which included those car rides from Pretoria to Ruimsig which took an hour there and an hour back and then the training session in between. That was pretty much how Sundays went in the Kruger household.

What happens next is uncertain. The gap-year journey is unfolding and Kruger has to start thinking about what to do with her life. After all, she turns 20 in January (where’s that smiley emoji when you need it?)

“We’re going to go in a little phase where we’re going to make the body a bit stronger, because she’s not doing so many steps and school stuff and everything. We realise that there’s things that’s been lacking a bit now. So we’ll do a little bit of gym in the mornings, and she can build up the body for next year.”

The main event on the 2025 calendar is the World Para-Athletics Championships, although venue remains unknown as hosting bids only close in October.

When she stepped out of the tunnel into the Stade de France arena where 80 000 people raised the roof on Friday night she physically looked smaller than her opponents. Yet, when it came to business, she was the giant in the circle. I suggest to her that in sport speed is power and asked whether she gets her distance from her speed when throwing. “I do depend on speed but if I didn’t have the technique that I use now, I don’t think my speed would have helped. So it’s definitely the technique. Coach Pierre taught us that actually speed came afterwards. It’s actually the technique I’m using.”

That was confirmed by Dad. “Pierre was super analytical. There’s a specific technique and you need to follow it. And he allowed her to skip one mark, to become faster and that meant an extra four metres for Simone. There is no para-athlete with the technique that Simone has, none.”

The next line drawn on the grass will be 40m, which means another 18 centimetres ahead of her world record. “We’ve thrown it in training. The Chinese are emerging as her biggest rivals and they’ve been studying Simone. A coach was watching Simone and he went to his athlete and changed one thing. That athlete is now throwing 37 metres.”

Andries uses the word discipline frequently and to illustrate what he means he brings up his daughter’s diet. “Since she arrived in the athletes’ village she hasn’t eaten anything out of line. In a CP world, she might get flu and she might get very tired. That is discipline like you can’t believe. The team management even comes to us and they say they cannot even give her a sweet. She won’t take it.”

Well documented too is the father-daughter-coach relationship between Andries and Simone. I am the thousandth person to ask them about it surely, perhaps there have been even more – and if not, there will certainly be more of the same.

“You start,” Andries says to Simone. “No, you go first,” she says to dad.

“When she’s at home, I’m dad,” he says. “You become attached to the whole athletics journey and Simone just goes on to the field and starts practising.” She chips in. “It helps that we live a few hundred metres from the track.”

Andries continues. “If we have differences on the day, if both of us are tired and it doesn’t go that well, we laugh and talk about where we are going and so we tend to make it light as well. You never really fully separate the father-daughter relationship even when coach. But there is a disciplined side at home and there’s definitely a coaching side.

“Some days she knows nothing is going to work and the next moment, it’s almost my problem. And then we quickly need to decide, how are we going manage this one today? And then we do and then we go on tomorrow. We get there and we laugh at yesterday. It goes well, and then it’s easy. So, yes, it is really something that you need to invest a lot of emotions and personal development into to become a father-coach.

“With cerebral palsy, there are stages where you just need to start motivating. If she throws 20 meters, you motivate. If she throws 40m, you don’t have to motivate. There are times when you stop fixing and you start motivating.”

Right now, no further motivation is needed. Rest and recovery is required – and a medals cabinet that is strong enough to support a piece of the Eiffel Tower that she is taking back with her.


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