WINDHOEK He managed to swim only 1:01,96 in the 50 metres freestyle during his first swimming competition last month, but Matheus Angula is confident that he will improve his performance and compete internationally in the near future.
His time is a far cry from the minimum qualification standard of 33,25 for the 2016 Rio Paralympics, but the young man who was born without legs is positive that he will win gold in swimming soon.
Angula, known as ‘Spiderman’ to his friends, was part of a group of 35 athletes who represented Namibia at the South African Sport Association for the Physically Disabled and Visually Impaired (SASAPD) National Championships in Bloemfontein last month.
Namibian athletes brought home 49 medals, with 27 gold, 15 silver and seven bronze.
As it stands, 14 athletes have already qualified with either A or B qualification standards for the Paralympic Games in September this year.
No swimmer in Angula ‘s category won a medal at the event.
The 22 year old was the newest member of the Namibian National Paralympic Committee (NNPC)’s swimming team to attend the games along with swimmers Gideon Nasilowski and Caitlin Botha, the only female swimmer with a disability. None of them returned with medals either.
‘At an early age I learned how to move from one place to another just using my arms. When I started with sports at school we always travelled with the big government buses for competitions and I would jump with my arms and hands from one end of the rail inside the bus to the other, even as the bus was moving at a high speed. My teammates started calling me Spiderman and I loved the name,’ said Angula.
He took up competitive swimming a few months ago.
‘At the beginning of this year I approached the NNPC with my idea and they arranged for me to meet with my coach Sonja (Lindemeier) and after a few sessions with her I now love being in the water.
‘She showed me a lot of swimming styles which I never knew of. Right now the sky is the limit for me in the pool,’ he told Nampa during a recent interview at the Olympia Swimming Pool in the capital, where he trains.
During the interview, Angula at times swung from his arms to his lower torso to distribute his weight, which is also how he gets around.
He already has one medal to his name gold in javelin won during the Nedbank National Championships in 2014 in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
He considered taking up swimming while at another sport event in Pretoria in 2015, where he spent time in the swimming pools of the establishments where they were accommodated.
Angula was recently classified to swim in the S6 category in freestyle and SB5 in breaststroke.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) designated S6 and SB5 classes includes swimmers with short stature, amputations of both arms or moderate co ordination problems on one side of their body.
Lindemeier is confident in her new swimming student.
‘I am confident that with time and a couple of training sessions we will be able to swim under a minute by the end of the year. I can tell you now that this young man is going to win us gold after a couple of months of training,’ she told this agency.
Lindemeier said Angula is one of the hardest working swimmers she has worked with.
‘He wants to train every day and he is improving on a daily basis. In the beginning I had a problem with how to make him swim certain styles because it was the first time I worked with someone who doesn’t have legs. I found it hard to push him like I would push able bodied athletes. But we now know what works for him and what doesn’t,’ she said.
Lindemeier is also the coach and mother of prolific Namibian swimmer Daniela Lindemeier.
She was pleased with Angula’s performance at the recent South African National Championships were he swam 1:01,96 in the 50m freestyle and 1:45,21 in the 50m breaststroke, despite working together for only two months.
He trains once per day five or six times per week in order to improve his swimming and change his circumstances for the better.
Angula is a strong character and has never allowed his disability to affect or define who he is.
‘From herding cattle and goats as a child until now I never had real difficulties as a disabled person. Everything that happened in my life I call the challenges that made me who I am today,’ he told Nampa.
He was born at Elambo village in the Oshikoto Region.
‘In the beginning I struggled because I did not have a wheelchair and it became a problem when I had to move from one place to another or when it rained and the Oshanas (earth dams) were full.’
As he grew older he figured out how to use his hands to lift up his upper body so he could shift his torso forward or backwards. This is how he crossed the ponds and herded goats and cattle.
‘I never saw it as a problem because I took it as a challenge that I had to overcome,’ he said.
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