#TuksWheelchairRugby: Disabled athletes will be challenged to the limit at Sun City

Posted on September 27, 2018

Being disabled does not mean you should limit yourself to what you think you are capable of. 

That is what the WHASCP Fitness Challenge at Sun City is going to be all about over the weekend. It is the brainchild of the former Proteas and TuksWheelchairRugby player, Viktor Buitendag. 

A few of the players training with the TuksWheelchairRugby team as well as Mariska Venter the HPC wheelchair tennis player are just a few of the disabled athletes who will be competing.

According to Buitendag when his competitive playing days ended he realised that it would be foolish for him to suddenly just stop doing any physical activity. 

“I am a firm believer in the concept of a healthy body healthy mind. So I took up CrossFit and qualified as an instructor. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. It led to me doing a lot of research, and with time I realised that there is a significant need for something similar to Crossfit but which is more adapted to the needs of disabled people. 

“Wheelchair Holistic Adaptive Strength Conditioning Program (WHASCP) is a unique program which identifies specific weakness which a disabled person needed to be worked on with the aim of strengthening the body. However, it is more than just that. The whole idea is to get disabled people to adopt a healthy lifestyle. It means we also focus on a healthy diet. The weekend’s competition is a logical spinoff of this.”

Jesse-Lee Botha is one of the players training with the TuksWheelchairRugby team who will be competing. The 22-year-old makes no secret that he is looking forward to seeing what he is capable of. 

“Although it is an individual competition for me the real challenge will be more personal I want to see how hard I can push myself and for how long. I expect that is going to be the goal of most of the other competitors as well."

Botha was only 17 when he was involved in a motor accident that left him paralysed from the waist down. He admits feeling sorry for himself for a long time.

“For the first six months after my accident, I mainly stayed in bed expecting my family to be at my beg and call. This all changed one day when I fell trying to get onto my wheelchair. As usual, I expected someone to help me back on. 

"However, my elder brother decided enough is enough. He told me it that is high time that should take responsibility for what happens. He reasoned that I had been taught during rehabilitation how to look after myself. That included getting in and out of the wheelchair. So he left me on the ground crying. 

“That was the best thing my brother could have done because the moment I made the decision to get onto the chair on my own was the day my life changed and I started to live life to the fullest. I now believe I can do anything an abled body person can do that is except walking.”

 

- Author Wilhelm de Swardt

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