Limbless man swims Midmar Mile.
He has no arms or legs but open-water swimmer Craig Dietz – who’s just aced SA’s Midmar Mile – lives life to the max
IT’S one of the biggest open-water swimming events in the world and draws competitors from near and far – so it was no surprise when one of the swimmers in last month’s Midmar Mile came all the way from the USA.
This was in fact the second time Craig Dietz tackled the challenging swim across the dam in the KwaZuluNatal Midlands. He enjoyed it so much the first time around he came back for more.
Which is all unsurprising – except that Craig has no limbs and propels himself through the water with a single blue flipper strapped to his right leg stump.
At the start of the race the 43-year-old from Harrisburg in Pennsylvania hurried into the water along with the other hundreds of swimmers, then flipped himself onto his back and started gliding easily through the water, using the flipper like a tail.
Every so often he tilted his head to look out for Odette Randelhoff, a swimming instructor from Pietermaritzburg who was swimming next to him and helping him to stay on course – because Craig swims backstroke he can’t see where he’s going.
They reached the other side of the dam a little over half an hour later, to thunderous applause from the crowd. But Craig wasn’t done yet: he crossed the dam seven times in total, clocking his best time of 36 minutes for one of the crossings.
It was a feat typical of the tenacity and spirit that’s characterised Craig all his life. Born with a rare congenital deformity called phocomelia, where the limbs are either grossly underdeveloped or absent, he hasn’t let his disability hamper anything he does.
“I’m totally independent,” he tells us a few days after the Midmar Mile when we meet at a Johannesburg hotel. Next up on his and wife Christy’s agenda is a trip to a nature reserve in the Pilanesberg before they head home to the States.
“I’m going to see the big five,” he says, while expertly manoeuvring his wheelchair closer to the table.
It was Craig’s spirit that impressed Christy, an attorney, when they met in 2001 at a party organised by mutual friends. Everyone was playing volleyball, she says, and Craig didn’t hold back.
“I remember how he hit the ball with his head. And that’s him – he’ll try anything. He’ll just find a way of doing it.”
CRAIG has loved being in water ever since he can remember. When his two older sisters and brother frolicked in the pool as kids, he was right there beside them. “I wore a safety tube, just like all other toddlers,” he says. “I did everything with my siblings. If they did something, I had to do it as well. Maybe I’ve always been this competitive!”
He recalls swimming in the shallows at the beach one day when he was nine years old. “A lifesaver walked over to me and pushed my right stump into a flipper that was part of his diving equipment. He showed me how to kick – and I was off!”
But swimming was just a hobby until he decided to take part in an open-water race in 2008.
“I love being competitive – that mentality of pushing yourself to achieve something and finding new opportunities.”
His first race was the Allegheny River swim in Pennsylvania, and he completed the 1,5-km course in 40 minutes as part of a triathlon team. “I was hooked,” he says.
He’s since competed in so many open-water competitions he can hardly remember them all.
In 2012 at the World Open Water Swimming Championships in California he met Wayne Ridden, organiser and director of the Midmar Mile. Wayne invited him to attend the 2013 race as a guest but Craig wanted to take part.
“It’s more fun being in the water than out of it,” he says.
A few days before the 2013 Midmar he was introduced to Odette, who helped him to prepare for the race.
She and Noelene Kotschan, founding member and director of breast cancer awareness NGO PinkDrive, collaborated to find sponsors to enable Craig to compete in this year’s Midmar Mile and raise awareness about cancer. Craig and Odette raised about R80 000 between them for PinkDrive.
The Midmar Mile is one of his top three open-water competitions, Craig says as he hops out of the wheelchair and clambers onto one of the bulky leather chairs. “South Africa’s natural beauty is something that really attracts me,” he adds.
That Sunday while he and Odette were in the water he turned to her and said, “Look around us – it’s beautiful and we’re swimming for a good cause.”
HIS parents encouraged him to try prostheses when he was a toddler but none worked for him. “I just hated them,” Craig says. He found he could do things faster using his mouth, chin, shoulder and stumps.
His approach has always been to simply get on with it. In primary school he had a helper who accompanied him to class. “She was my ‘school mom’ but in high school I didn’t want her around all the time any more,” he says.
He simply found ways to manage on his own. His locker turned out to be one of his biggest challenges, so he requested one on ground level and had a large ring fitted to the door. Using a long stick with a hook on the end he could open the door, climb out of his wheelchair to get to his books and load them onto the chair.
The pole remains one of his most trusted tools. He presses it to his shoulder with his chin and can then manipulate it to perform all sorts of tasks. It’s like a right arm to him, he says.
“I can switch on lights, open cupboards and curtains, switch on my computer and pick up anything from the floor with it.”
Craig studied law after finishing school and worked as a litigation lawyer for the Pittsburgh city council. He resigned in 2010 to become a full-time motivational speaker and have time to swim. He trains up to five hours a week in the pool at the gym near his home.
“You have to be fit to compete in openwater races.”
He gets around by himself in a car that’s been adapted for him. He controls the vehicle with a special joystick he operates with his right stump.
There are few things that annoy him more than people pitying him and saying things like, “Shame, he’s stuck in a wheelchair.”
“Then I get out of my wheelchair, lie flat on my back and climb back in – just to show them I’m not stuck.”
Is there anything he finds difficult? Craig thinks for a moment.
“No, absolutely nothing.”
‘If they [my siblings] did something, I had to do it as well’