Fighting towards the Paralympics

KNYSNA NEWS – While Knysna last year saw a healthy crop of athletes taking part in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the town could soon have a representative taking part in the Paralympics.

Runner-turned-triathlete Kirsty Weir has her eyes set on qualifying for the triathlon Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, and while many might shrug this off as a crazy dream of some starry-eyed local, something is very different about Weir.

For her, qualifying for the Paralympics isn't simply some pipe dream. It is very personal. She has been to hell and back more than once, and she will stop at nothing to get to Paris for the Paralympics.

"What makes Kirsty Weir so different then?" you might ask. Let me tell you.

Early years

Weir, 44, was born in East London as the youngest of three girls, the laatlammetjie, as she puts it.

Her family was obsessed with running - her mother has completed numerous Comrades and Two Oceans marathons, both of which her mother completed with Weir's two sisters.

"So I thought, I'm being left out, I had better join them. So I started off with 2km, but hated every step I took. I came stone last in my first race," Weir remembers. "But then, the bug bit and something clicked."

This bug not only bit, it chomped down and refused to budge. It started in 1995 when Weir began running competitively.

In 1997 she was offered a scholarship to run cross country at the Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado, USA. There, she became an All-American not once, but twice - a title bestowed on the top 20 athletes in the country.

Kirsty Weir at Portland Manor, who have become one of her main sponsors.

Anorexia battle

But by the time she returned to SA, all was not right. Weir had been suffering a devastating internal battle, one that had already started when she went to America.

She was fighting anorexia nervosa, a psychological eating disorder causing people to obsess about their weight and what they eat.

Slowly but surely Weir was losing grips on her running career, as well as her friends and family.

But, at some point in the early 2000s, something clicked again and she decided not to let anorexia beat her. She waged a six-year battle with the disease.

Through her tenacity and sheer will, she succeeded, and in due time she was back to winning races; even placing fifth in her category in the Ironman triathlon. She had gone from rock bottom to cloud nine.

Little did she know that another storm was brewing inside her.

Battle number two

Roughly 13 years ago she was out on a training run when she suddenly lost feeling in her left leg. What followed was 13 years of running, racked by the psychological pain of not feeling her leg, running from start to finish, from specialist to specialist trying to find answers. "I saw sport scientists, doctors, biokineticists, I've had yellow pages put in my shoes, had inners made, told it's simply in my head.

You name it, I have searched and searched for the answer," she recalls. "I knew something wasn't right but these people were telling me I was imagining it. I would stand on start lines, tears streaming down my face wondering how I was going to lift my leg."

But, by her own admission, Weir is stubborn. She was determined to find an answer and in November 2020 she was given the best chance yet when a local neurologist admitted her to hospital for a week, during which all kinds of tests were conducted to try and find the root of the problem.

"It was she who identified that I have neurological lupus, a rare autoimmune disease," Weir says.

A new, different race to run

Along with the diagnosis came the bombshell that she was now classified as a "paraplegic athlete" while to the untrained eye, she looks completely 'normal' with no obvious disability. Many would have simply given up at this point, seen their athletics career as over.

But not Kirsty Weir. For her, this was simply another start line of what she knew would be a long, arduous race, the toughest one she's ever run.

During a consultation with a Paralympics classifier in George last year, the idea of competing in the triathlon was planted, given that she'd done the Ironman many years ago. "Why don't you give it a try, she said.

My words were, 'Are you freaking nuts, I only learnt to swim two months before Ironman and I taught myself to do that, so I have no idea how to swim properly, I don't own a bike, I have nothing'. But that seed was planted," Weir says.

Triathlon success

That seed has germinated and grown into near bloom. Since that day Weir has participated in a number of paratriathlon events at both district and national level.

She has won a number of triathlon events in the Eden League, and in March she took her skills to the SA Paratriathlon Championships in Gqeberha.

There she competed in the PTS5 Women's category, which she won. Weir was once more a national champion, and it is just the start.

"I still have so many more events to take part in, and so many more races to run in order to earn qualification for the Paralympics," she admits.

"But, I cannot wait. I'm going after it." Weir is as determined as ever. After battling anorexia, depression and neurological lupus, and overcoming countless other obstacles throughout her athletics career, she has her sights set on the Paralympics.

And who dare stop her? Not me, that's for sure.

Weir taking part in the 2021 Knysna Waterfront Half-marathon. Photos: Blake Linder