Paralympic champ’s amazing spirit
Paralympic champ Manie has come back fighting from every challenge life has thrown at him!
IF YOU’D told him when he was seven years old that he’d grow up to be a recordbreaking Paralympic athlete he’d never have believed you. Back then there was nothing different about him; he was just a regular little kid doing regular little-kid things.
Then his eyesight started failing – and eventually Hermanus “Manie” Blom was left with just 10% vision in both eyes.
But that wasn’t the only blow to strike him: he also had his leg shattered when a motorcyclist crashed into him just as his athletics career was taking off. And a few months ago he needed a hip replacement after he started experiencing excruciating pain.
Yet if anyone is resilient and determined it’s Manie. Last year he stood tall and proud on the podium at the 2017 World Para Athletics Championships in London to accept a gold medal in discus – and he now has his sights set firmly on the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
“Life isn’t always smooth sailing,” the 33-year-old personal trainer says. “There are going to be difficult times. But it all depends on the choices you make – are you going to be pulled down by your situation or are you going to use it to your benefit and become stronger?”
No prizes for guessing which path he took.
MANIE is wearing his green World Champs jacket when he lets us into the home in Montana, Pretoria, he shares with his wife, Charné (26), who’s pregnant with their first child, a girl.
He leans on a crutch, the legacy of his hip replacement surgery. But he’ll soon be able to start training again, he says – and he’ll concentrate on the shot put for the Paralympics as discus has been discontinued in his classification.
He’s up for the challenge – after all, he specialises in overcoming life-changing challenges.
Manie recalls how his descent into near-darkness began. “My sight started deteriorating from the age of eight. I used to read small pocket Bibles and I couldn’t read them anymore. So I went onto a
(From previous page) bigger Bible with bigger type, then a bigger one and a bigger one. My parents started noticing that I held books closer to my face when I was reading.”
Manie had tests and the diagnosis was devastating: he had Stargardt macular dystrophy, an inherited and incurable disorder of the retina that causes vision loss in childhood or adolescence.
It was a lot for an eight-year-old to comprehend. “When you’re a child you don’t really understand things like that. When I played cricket in primary school, I couldn’t understand why they always bowled me in the face and hit me everywhere. I didn’t see anyone else getting hit, so I always thought I wasn’t good enough.”
Manie recalls being bullied at school as a result of his failing eyesight. “You always get those children who pick on kids who seem different, and I was one of those kids. They’d call me ‘mole’ and things like that.”
Manie spent part of his high school career at Prinshof School for Partially Sighted and Blind in Pretoria where things were considerably easier for him – but then his stepfather, Willie Croukamp, decided he should go to a “normal” school until matric.
“My stepdad said, ‘When you grow up people in your workplace aren’t going to assist you – you need to learn how to cope.’ So he basically forced me to stay in a normal school and learn the hard way.
“At first I was very upset with him because there was a lot of assistance at Prinshof, but luckily the [new] teachers were very supportive.”
Manie took up athletics and ran against his able-bodied peers and it wasn’t until he’d matriculated that he became aware of athletics for the disabled.
“My cousin was involved in a motorcycle accident and lost her leg. She started competing in long jump and went to the Paralympics in 2004. She’s the one who encouraged me to start competing.”
To say Manie hit the ground running would be an understatement. He excelled in the 400m and was running races left, right and centre.
Then disaster struck. “I was walking along the pavement when two young guys came around the corner on motorcycles and one of them hit me. This leg was completely broken and the bone was sticking out. [Doctors] reconstructed it with pins and screws.” He points to his scarred right leg.
His left knee was also badly damaged and had to be reconstructed. “A knee will never be the same again after reconstruction like that,” he says.
Manie had to learn to walk again and it took six months to become mobile and four years to recover fully. He was devastated when he was told he’d never be able to compete on the track again. “But then I joined the gym with a friend and things started looking up.”
And, like a proverbial light at the end of a tunnel, while he was recovering he met Charné. “His aunt and my aunt are best friends and I used to go on holiday with them,” Charné says. “We met officially at my uncle’s 50th birthday party.”
They hit it off and started dating. Charné became one of Manie’s main supporters as he clawed his way back to physical fitness.
With his running days behind him, Manie ventured into field sports. Shot put was his first choice but he soon found he was better at discus.
“My coach, Burger Lambrechts, and I came to the decision that I should focus on discus and work towards the 2017 world championships.” The results were phenomenal. “I broke records every year.” By the time Manie was ready for the world championships he was at his peak – and broke an 11-year-old world record with a throw of 51,16m.
AGAIN, the joy was shortlived. In October last year, soon after returning from the world championships, Manie started experiencing pain in his right hip during training. He rested for a week or two but the pain became worse.
It was hip dysplasia – when the ball of the hip joint isn’t completely covered by the socket.
“He couldn’t train at all because he was in so much pain,” explains Charné, a financial clerk. “It broke my heart because I knew how much it meant to him and there was nothing I could do to help.”
A doctor told him the only solution was a hip replacement – a costly operation. Manie had no medical aid.
“The doctor told me about Operation Healing Hands, which sponsors operations for people who can’t afford them. He said I should forward all my documents to them to make it onto the waiting list. So I did but didn’t really get my hopes up because I know they can only help so many people.”
But in July he received a call from the organisation telling him his application had been successful and his surgery would be performed the following week.
He hopes to recover enough by October to start training for the Paralympics – and dreams of standing on the podium in Tokyo, a gold medal around his neck.
You have to aim high, he says. Nothing but the best will do.
‘When I played cricket in primary school I couldn’t understand why they always bowled me in the face’