Rio De Janeiro – After he had been handed South Africa’s first gold medal of the 2016 Paralympics, after the anthem had ended and the South African flag folded up, Kevin Paul found himself a quiet place amongst the shouting of the fans in the Paralympic Aquatic Centre on Thursday night.
He was a two-time gold medallist in the 100m breaststroke, his medals coming eight years apart. He wanted to shape his memories of the night, to find something to anchor them with and so he went to look at the pool where it had all happened.
“After the race, after the medal had been given to me, I wanted to soak up the atmosphere,” said Paul yesterday. “I was sitting alone in the crowd, hearing the fans cheer for others, and, well you can call it selfish, but I just wanted to enjoy my moment by myself. I was taking it all in, seeing the pool that I raced in… it was just an amazing feeling knowing I had achieved my goal and my dream in that pool.
“In the build-up to the race, I tried to spend as little time in the main arena as possible. We have got a small warm-up pool outside. I got myself race ready, doing my pre-race rituals, doing the warm-up, getting into the call room. In the race itself, you don’t take anything in, you do your job and I did my job properly, I feel.”
He will remember the numbers, even though he said minutes after his win, the water of the pool still on his body, they meant nothing to him. He won in 1:04.86, just 0.24 seconds quicker than Denys Dubrov of the Ukraine. Dutchman Duncan van Haaren was third.
“It takes a while after the race to process it,” said Paul after a meet and greet with the sports minister. “You’ve got doping control, that ran a little bit late and I had to run from there and into the medal presentation, which I almost missed. The first time I could really appreciate what had happened was when that flag was being raised and the national anthem was being played.
“Hearing your anthem and seeing your flag being raised first at the Paralympic Games was incredible. It’s certainly not the last time we are going to hear it at these Games, but to be the first South African to do that for South Africa. It’s been overwhelming. It’s amazing to see how much one impact can have on so many different people. Sometimes athletes are selfish, and we do it by ourselves, and think it is our moment, that I am going to swim for one minute and four seconds, but in fact the entire country is there with you.”
For Leon Fleiser, the chef de mission of the South African team, Paul’s medal was the perfect way to start the Paralympics. For as much as these are the Games of inspiration and inclusion, they are also about winning.
“It was great to start on the first day with a medal and even better to start with a gold medal,” said Fleiser, and former wheelchair basketball Paralympian. “We always had faith Kevin would get us a gold. He missed out in London, so I think he had a point to prove. It was great, takes the pressure off and opens the door for the other athletes to start the campaign off. I know a target of 28 medals in total has been set, but my focus is on gold. If only win 10 gold medals I will be more than happy.”
Independent Media