SA's Natalie in line for top UK sports award

By Allister Arendse

Cape Town's swimming sensation Natalie du Toit has been named as a candidate for a prestigious British sporting award, The Sunday Times Sportswoman of the Year.

The 18-year-old swimmer, whose career was cruelly interrupted when her lower left leg was amputated after a scooter accident in 2001, is the only person outside the United Kingdom to be nominated.

In August, Du Toit was named the most outstanding athlete of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester and soon afterwards received the Western Cape Golden Cross from premier Marthinus van Schalkwyk.

In Manchester, at her first competition after the accident, she won two gold medals in the Elite Athlete with a Disability freestyle swimming events, breaking two world records.

She made sporting history by being the first disabled swimmer to compete against able-bodied athletes in the 800m freestyle final.

Du Toit said on Monday that she was thrilled at the news.

"It's an honour and a privilege to be nominated, especially since it's an international award and I'm the only non-British candidate."

She also spoke of her determination to take part in the 2004 Olympic Games: "I'm setting my sights on Athens and from next year I'll train to make the qualifying time for 2004."

The matric pupil at Reddam House in Tokai said she had grown up since the accident and realised what life meant.

"I've learnt to appreciate life a lot more. I believe you're put on earth for a reason and that out of every negative there must come a positive. You've just got to work through the problems," she said.

"I think that if anybody deserves the award, it's Natalie. She's out of the ordinary - a role-model for everybody," said Natalie's coach Karoly von Toros.

Toros said Natalie had not been able to train as thoroughly as she would have liked to because she was in her matric year. "But she is trying her best," he said.

Rumour has it that the favoured nominee to scoop the award is British athlete Paula Radcliffe, who shattered the world marathon record at the Chicago Marathon on October 13.

The winner will be announced at a ceremony in London in December by 25-year-old sailor Ellen MacArthur, who became the youngest person to sail around the world in the 2001 gruelling non-stop Vendee Globe yacht race.