From Peddie to Paris — Team SA judoka Ndyebo Lamani’s journey to the Paralympics

8 Sep 2024

The judoka from the tiny Eastern Cape village loves every moment of the Games.

Team South Africa’s only judoka at the Paris 2024 Paralympics, Ndyebo Lamani (32), is making friends and putting his rural Eastern Cape village on the world map.

Peddie, in the 2011 census count, had a population of just 4,658. It is two hours by bus from Gqeberha and one hour from East London. There are 86% isiXhosa speakers, 98% of residents are black people and 46% are male.

There are some people who still struggle to accept that the kid who grew up with his blind mother, Vathiwe, and his aunt, Neliswa, is part of Team SA and competing for his country at the 2024 Paralympics.

“I had to take my passport and a medal that I had previously won to the elder in the village because no one would believe that I could be representing South Africa,” Lamani said in Paris this week.

“They told me: ‘It’s impossible, you are dreaming.’ I was this kid who was bullied at primary school before I went to Khanyisa School for the Visually Impaired in Gqeberha [then Port Elizabeth].

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“We were encouraged to take up sport and I started out as a 100m and 200m track athlete for the visually impaired.

“I only then took up judo, which is late for a judo player, and I got my black belt seven years ago when I was twenty-something, maybe 25.

“Three years later my condition had got worse and I was reclassified from a J2 [visually impaired] to a J1 [blind]. There are regular tests done to see whether someone needs to be reclassified.”

Special bond

We’re sitting in a room in the athletes’ village in Paris, and Lamani has been accompanied by coach Dirk Crafford. He has known Lamani, who competes in the J1 under-73kg category at the Games and is ranked 13th in the world, since 2011.

“Ndyebo has never had a father in his life, but he and I have become so close over the years that I think we have that kind of relationship. I am one of a few coaches who guide him, but I live in Roodepoort.

“I am honoured to have been selected to be his Team SA coach here in Paris. His main coach and the man who must take so much credit for Ndyebo’s judo success is Sondisa Magajana,” says Crafford.

They say that it takes a village to raise a child and it rings true in Lamani’s case.

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“Whenever Ndyebo has been selected for the national team, he comes to stay with me in Roodepoort and is part of our family,” says Crafford.

“He takes the bus from Peddie to Roodepoort and sleeps overnight on the bus. It’s logistically easier, given he then doesn’t have to travel to the airport in Gqeberha first and then fly to Johannesburg. It’s also more cost-effective. He was with me for six weeks leading up to these Paralympics.”

Genetic condition

The sports star with the big smile has an infectious personality and has won over friends from near and far while enjoying his experience of Paralympic life.

“I started collecting pins [a trend among athletes from different countries] yesterday and I got six on my first day!” Lamani says. “It’s easy for me to make friends because I like to talk.

“This is my first Paralympics. I got Covid just before qualification for Tokyo 2020, so I missed out on that.”

Lamani was born with a visual impairment, which has got progressively worse.

“It’s a genetic condition,” he says. “My grandfather was blind, my mom is blind and I’m now blind. When I say blind I mean I’m not visually impaired. I can’t see. I have two children – a 10-year-old son who became visually impaired at the age of six and who will probably become blind, and also a 14-year-old daughter, who can see. She’s okay.”

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Lamani is in close contact with his family back home and updates them regularly from the Games. “I speak to my mom every day on the phone. She is so proud and she says the people of Peddie are too. My mom says they are all talking about me.

“She wants to listen on the radio to the Paralympics, but if it’s not broadcast on the radio I will phone her to tell her how my competition went.”

Crafford says he received a phone call less than two months ago from Vicky Hlatshwayo, a coordinator at the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc), to say that Lamani had been selected for Paris.

“We were all very emotional,” Crafford says. “Although we had travelled overseas before and Ndyebo had even won a medal that he had to show to the people of Peddie to prove he wasn’t making up the story, this was different.

“I want to say thank you to Judo South Africa and SASAPD [the South African Sports Association for the Physically Disabled)], Sascoc and everyone who has helped us get here. We are both here to be ambassadors for South Africa and we will be doing our best to bring pride and joy to the country.”

And to Peddie, obviously. The small town that Lamani is now putting on the world map. DM

Gary Lemke is in Paris as part of Team SA.

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.

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Special bond

Genetic condition