MARK ETHERIDGE: Naveen Daries beat visual impairment to realise Olympic dream

Like every aspiring athlete, gymnast Naveen Daries had a vision early in life, but in her case there was a big difference. When one realises that she only has 50% sight her feats are all the more eye-opening.

She was one of just two SA artistic gymnasts at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia, teaming up with fellow Johannesburg Gymnastics Centre athlete Claudia Cummins.

Daries had double vision from an early age, but went on to realise dreams of being part of the Commonwealth Games and then to the pinnacle for so many sportspeople, representing Team SA at the Tokyo Olympics in Japan in 2021.

“It’s no big deal to me. I’m blind in one eye,” she says in passing. “I was born like that, so I just don’t focus on it. I know no different.”

Her Gold Coast outing was a pain in the butt for Daries, quite literally, as she did some lasting hamstring muscle damage. “It’s frustrating … it gets better, then it acts up. [It is] way better than it was, but it comes and goes.”

The two big multicode Games have also come and gone but Daries is determined to put the experience to good use. “I was super young at Gold Coast and incredibly nervous and then I got injured. But I learnt so much from both events, mentally and physically.”

That fans were at a premium in Tokyo due to the Covid-19 pandemic was not at all off-putting, she says.

“I still found it amazing. I’d never experienced an ‘Olympic-sized’ crowd in any case so just focused on myself. But I’m really looking forward to a ‘normal’ Commonwealth and Olympic Games — one goal at a time.”

Her biggest fan is mom Annzelle, who hails from the arid region of Upington, Northern Cape, but now lives in Johannesburg.

“She’s one incredible young woman,” says Annzelle. “She has to work so much harder than most other gymnasts because of her eyesight handicap but she’s still an inspiration to the family in general and in particular her younger sister, Zelmé, also training with Ilse Roets-Pelser at [Johannesburg Gymnastics Centre].”

Daries senior says Naveen (all 1.64m and 59kg of her) is a larger-than-life presence in the family home. “She’s the sunshine in the house. If she’s not at home it feels like no one’s home. And even when she’s stressed she’s still putting others before herself. One of her pressure-valves is making Tik-Tok social media videos. She’s got more than 56,000 followers and has perfected so many foreign accents, she can make anyone laugh.”

Roets-Pelser mirrors the sentiment. “She’s just one of the nicest people. She and Caitlyn Rooskrantz took about a month-long break after Tokyo and she was hugely, hugely missed here — just in the way she works with the little ones, the example she sets, the energy she brings to the college. She helps with the tumbling classes and runs the adult classes. She takes on so many roles in her life, including that of coaching.

Best apparatus

“She narrowly missed qualifying for Tokyo in 2019 but just knuckled down, persisted until she got it right.”

Daries has been with former international Roets-Pelser for about 10 years. “Naveen was quite far behind in uneven bars but persevered and now it’s her favourite and her best apparatus.”

One of the talking points of the Tokyo Olympics was the Russian figure-skater Kamila Valieva, who competed under the cloud of a positive drugs test in late December, 2021, claiming she had inadvertently taken a family member’s prescription medicines.

Daries doesn’t buy into that. “Speaking for myself, we have our physiotherapists, biokineticists and personal trainers who all look closely at what we eat. We’re most aware of being 100% sure of what we put into our bodies.”

Looking ahead to Birmingham and the Commonwealth Games later in 2022, Daries takes a few seconds to respond. “To make a few apparatus and all-around finals would be amazing.”

And even further down the line: “If I could one day open up my own gym like Ilse, that would be amazing.”

Last word to Daries senior: “Our family of five revolves around gymnastics. There’s another budding star in Zelmé who’s in matric this year, so maybe, just maybe we’ll have two Daries going to Commonwealth Games.”

Now that’s double vision for you!