Mpumi Mhlongo breaks boundaries
“ARE YOU judged by people?” I ask Mpumi bluntly. “Possibly. Aren’t we all?”
Today, International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we celebrate Mpumi Mhlongo: an ordinary man with extraordinary drive. Mhlongo holds three world records and is the first person in UCT history to have been awarded Sportsperson of the Year in five consecutive years. But beyond his sporting achievements, it is his impressive mindset and unbiased spirit that makes him truly remarkable.
Growing up in a KwaZulu Natal community of only 60 000 people, Mhlongo spent his time after school playing in the streets until dark. With no gates or boundary lines separating his house from his neighbours’, Mpumi was surrounded by wise elders conversing about life’s deep questions.
Natural fitness was in Mhlongo’s blood. And before long, the roads in which he played as a child became his stadium. Although he received his provincial colours in swimming, cricket and soccer, the sport which captured his heart was high jump.
By 8 years old, Mpumi’s talent caught the attention of major newspapers around South Africa.
One day, after participating in a 100m sprinting event, Mhlongo was approached by a single-arm amputee, Vukile Skoti.
“Do you also compete in para-competitions?” the amputee asked curiously.
Mhlongo was taken aback, as he knew nothing about parasport. Mhlongo had not considered himself to have a disability. However, in spite of his self-assurance, Mhlongo was, in fact, disabled.
Born with a club foot and amniotic band syndrome, Mhlongo had always understood that he had a deformity, restricting the bone growth of most of his limbs, but significantly impacting his right leg. Mhlongo’s parents were given the devastating news that he would never walk. Miraculously, at the age of 6, Mhlongo took his first steps.
Though Mhlongo lovingly describes the community in which he was raised as the place where his heart lies, growing up in a traditional African household was not always easy. After he started becoming nationally recognised, the medical evidence around his impairment gained sufficient validity in the eyes of his great-grandmother.
Voicing that “inequalities exist everywhere in the world”, Mhlongo was warned against the “slippery slope” when you start laying out what you don’t have. It was Mhlongo’s mother, an ambitious woman who fostered his perspective, who taught him to unlock opportunities with the resources he had been given.
And after candidly revealing that his own siblings used to run away from him when he was a child, Mhlongo says that “I might look funky in the process (of running), but it’ll be exciting!” Comparing strangers’ stares to the reaction of a person seeing something for the first time, Mhlongo argues that the unfamiliar “will become normal if you’re around it enough”.
For International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the Chaeli Sports and Recreation Club (CSRC), founded in 2010, is honoured to celebrate Mhlongo as its patron.
Mhlongo believes that the Chaeli Sports and Recreation Club represents what it means to be human: finding solutions and adding value to others.
Now, Mhlongo will be walking alongside the CSRC to create opportunities for differently-abled kids to access recreational and competitive sports.
Inspired by Mhlongo’s resilience and passion for life, we stand behind him on his venture to the 2021 Tokyo Paralympics, the completion of his chemical engineering PhD at UCT and the success of his integrated healthcare start-up.