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Kirsty Weir has had time to digest and reflect on a life-changing 2024 Paris Paralympic experience – and she is now fully focused on the path ahead that will hopefully lead her to the podium at the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles, writes MARK LEMKE.
After Paris, the 44-year-old took a break from training. She told Team SA: “Paris was the highest of highs and coming back to reality, when coming home, felt like a very deep low.” The low has passed, and the former Two Oceans Marathon winner is back training and competing. She recently competed in the African Triathlon Championships, where she stormed across the line to win by 15 minutes in the PTS4 Women’s category.
Weir had explained her journey to Team SA in Paris: “We were living at Atlantic Beach in Cape Town 14 years ago, and I was running down the main road. All of a sudden, my left leg wasn’t there. It was swinging. That’s the only way to describe it. I went to a physiotherapist, biokineticist, chiropractor, even the Sports Science Institute. And then I started having severe migraines, which I still have for three or four days at a time. I’d fall a lot, be unsteady on my feet, have a loss of power and balance. I didn’t know what was going on but I kept running, kept trying to be who I had been. I was even tipped for a top 10 Comrades finish that year.
“Things got worse and the next 14 years were difficult. I was eventually diagnosed with a rare condition called neurological lupus. It took so long to discover that I’ve got lesions on the brain. In those 14 years, everything degenerated, and I was constantly told by experts that it was all in my mind, that I was ‘crazy’, so I kept going, but the performances kept getting worse. I didn’t understand, but I kept going.”
At the Paris Paralympics, Weir finished an impressive eighth in the final. .
“I was always a runner. After my diagnosis I thought that would be the end of my dreams of competing at the highest level, but what I came to realise was, it was only the beginning of my journey. Competing in the Paralympics was the best experience of my life.”
Off the back of this victory, the Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth) local is setting her sights on the South African Duathlon Championships scheduled for 12 July in Hoekwil, along the Western Cape’s Garden Route..
“These national championships would be a boost in my efforts to be ready for the next Paralympics. It is a cycle and a run which are my two strengths in the triathlon. The nationals would help elevate my abilities in these events going forward.”
Hoekwil is only the next step in Weir’s journey as she looks to build herself up to her best by training and competing, all in an effort to beat her previous finish at the Paralympics.
She is looking to enter as many events as she can, both nationally and internationally, with the goal of making her nation proud and inspiring those who are struggling to find hope during difficult times. Weir wants her story to be one that shows a relentless flame and desire to be great, despite the many adversities she has faced.
Photo: ROGER SEDRES at Paris 2024
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