COMMONWEALTH GAMES
SA’s paralympians feel at home at the Gold Coast
Three of SA’s Paralympic champions feel they are on par with their able-bodied comrades at the Commonwealth Games in Australia‚ which features a record number of disabled events. Reinhardt Hamman‚ the javelin thrower who is competing in shot put in Gold Coast‚ and sprinters Charl du Toit and Dyan Buis all have cerebral palsy. The Games do not offer the full array of disabled events‚ but with 38 para events out of 275 medal events here, this is still a huge increase on the last edition in Glasgow four years ago. Buis‚ the Rio 2016 400m winner, who will compete against Du Toit in the 100m at the Games‚ said there should be more combined events like the Australian showpiece. "I think the Commonwealth Games is a perfect prototype for inclusion in terms of getting disabled people competing in the same event as able-bodied people," he said. "So, to me, it’s a real privilege to be part of Team SA [and] not only the team with disabilities. I think that feeling is so liberating for me," Buis...
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