Medals don’t tell the whole story of athletes’ Rio successes

IN YEARS to come the Rio Olympic Games will be remembered for South Africa’s brilliant medal haul, a mere statistic for journalists to use as an interesting throwaway down the line.

Gone will be beautiful human-interest stories that gripped us during the quadrennial showpiece, and perhaps inspired a new generation of Olympians.

While their heroics are still fresh in the memory, we will celebrate their awesome feats with praise and respect, which they so richly deserve.

This Olympics has been one for the underdogs, the ones that never gave up on their dreams, the ones that powered through where others would have raised the white flag.

In the words of the late Afrikaans protest singer Johannes Kerkorrel: “Let us drink to the one that survives his dreams, to the one that gets what he asks for.”

A host of South African athletes did not merely survive their dreams, they soared way beyond their wildest imaginations. Rio 2016 has been the silver Olympics with a tinge of gold and bronze as some athletes delivered on their promise while others fell painstakingly close.

Every medal came with its fair share of sacrifices as the athletes pursued their Olympic dreams with a shared single-mindedness.

It is the stories of those that had to overcome extraordinary odds just to step on to the biggest stage of them all.

The stories of two South African men stand out, rower Lawrence Brittain surviving cancer and long jumper Luvo Manyonga shaking his tik past to become Olympic silver medallists in their respective events.

To separate Manyonga from his chequered past would take away from the magnitude of his incredible feat.

Few have been caught up by the demon and live to tell the tale, never mind making a comeback to come within a centimetre of winning an Olympic gold.

Manyonga deserves all the praise and admiration coming his way because he managed to defy the odds that were so heavily stacked against him.

True to the character of a champion, Manyonga thanked the people that had made it possible for him to escape the tik pipe.

His feat, of course, started with a decision, a decision to rise above his circumstances, and to live up to the immense promise he holds.

“Let us drink to the one that survives his dreams, to the one that gets what he asks for.”

Less than two years after he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Brittain crossed the finish at the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon with crewmate Shaun Keeling for their Olympic men’s pair silver medal.

In that final stroke across the line Brittain finally banished the memory of the six three-week cycles of chemotherapy, and his family’s desperate fight for his health.

Four months later he had beaten cancer and was starting his slow and painful pursuit of earning a seat with Keeling in the Olympic boat.

Unfit and overweight, Brittain’s small gains were complicated by his heart rate capped at 120.

He persevered and shed 16kg of the weight he had gained since starting his treatment to make his debut at the Rio Olympic Games.

Manyonga and Brittain represent the most beautiful of human characteristics.

“Let us drink to the one that survives his dreams, to the one that gets what he asks for.”