It’s a new year and this means new opportunities for many athletes as they prepare for their journey towards Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games. With just under three years to go, many athletes will be putting their best feet forward and giving their all with the hope of qualifying for upcoming international games and Paralympic Games alike.
The 2022 instalment of the South Africa Sports Association for the Physically Disabled (SASAPD) National Championships is set to kick off this weekend, 19 – 22 March 2022. This year, for the very first time with Toyota South Africa, the national games will be hosted in Gauteng by the City of Ekurhuleni in Germiston.
Toyota South Africa Motors (TSAM) is proud to continue its partnership with SASAPD for yet another three years. The motoring company has entered into this partnership to promote the sporting codes offered at the Paralympic level for athletes with disabilities.
“At Toyota, we believe that movement and mobility in all its definitions are all around us. Sport has the power to connect people. This is where we learn the true power of sport – it can challenge us, inspire us and, most importantly, unify us,” states Toyota South Africa.
“As the Worldwide Official Mobility Partner of the International Olympic Committee and the International Paralympic Committee, Toyota shares the vision to inspire people to push onward – past their finish line, past their impossible. We have seen so many examples of people achieving the impossible at the SASAPD National Championships.
“Toyota believes that you can achieve great things when you move. This is why we are a proud partner of the SASAPD National Championships. We are wholeheartedly committed to unleashing human potential through the power of movement,” concludes the Japanese automaker.
ABOUT THE SASAPD GAMES
The games are considered to be a good platform for nurturing promising and ambitious athletes with physical disabilities and visual impairment. Furthermore, the games have historically provided the country’s top athletes with disabilities, a birthplace for their dreams and serve as a centre of excellence.
At the games, participating para-athletes will compete in sports such as field and track athletics, boccia, goalball, para-cycling, CP football, para powerlifting and judo for the blind. The last edition of the competition saw three world records, eight African records and 48 South African records being set across two sporting codes - powerlifting and athletics. With another busy year ahead in disability sport, more record-breaking performances are expected.
Track and field athletes from 11 African countries have entered this year. The championships are a World Para athletics sanctioned event, offering qualification opportunities and world ranking points for many international events.
START YOUR IMPOSSIBLE
The Toyota SASAPD National Championships’ theme for 2022 is “Start your Impossible”, this is aptly titled as this is a year that’s set to bring out the next generation of rising stars.
Toyota’s “Start Your Impossible” was the brand’s first global campaign, conceptualised in 2018 to reflect the Olympic and Paralympic spirit of encouragement, challenge and progress. Created in honour of Toyota’s shift to a mobility company and to celebrate its long global partnership with the International Olympic and Paralympic Committees, it is an impassioned call to action which is designed to create a more inclusive and sustainable society in which every individual is encouraged to reach for and achieve his or her personal best.
ABOUT SASAPD
SASAPD is a federation that promotes sport for athletes with disabilities and visual impairments from grass-roots to the Paralympic level. It currently caters for a number of regions throughout the country and for five disability groups, including spinal cord injuries, amputees, cerebral palsied, visually impaired and blind, and les autres (a category for Paralympic competitors whose disability does not fit into the other five categories).
Moekie Grobbelaar, SASAPD president, says: “The National Championships are probably the most important for any athlete with a disability who participates in the eight sporting codes we offer. It is the last opportunity for these athletes to showcase their athletic ability. It offers them the opportunity to break South African or international records, which are then recognised.
“The core function for the SASAPD is to develop the sport codes and build athletes from grassroots. That is why we have schools and clubs. I’m interested in the newcomers or wild-card athletes, as it shows me whether there is development in the sport,” she explains.
People with disabilities are monitored by SASCOC as soon as they become high-performance athletes. SASAPD thus takes more interest in the talent that still needs to be developed.
