POLOKWANE – New Horizon School learner, Paris Sadike, calls himself a big fish in a little pond when it comes to swimming galas for the intellectually impaired.
Sadike says he has been competing in these galas since he was 12 years old.
According to Sadike, you have to have a passion for the swimming to succeed in the water.
“I started swimming at a very young age in the dirty rivers of Elim outside Makhado. My mother did not want me to swim with my peers because she thought maybe I would drown, but that did not stop me from sneaking out and doing what I love,” he says.
He said he looks up to his Eagar Aquatics coach, Douggie Eagar.
Sadike said he wants to win medals and compete for South Africa in international sporting events in the future to make his coach proud.
He told Review he wanted to swim for professional clubs and travel the world.
Eagar described Sadike as hard working, committed and passionate about the sport. “I have trained him for a long time and I foresee a bright future for him. He is an intellectually impaired boy, but so creative and intelligent,” said Eagar.
His coach, Louisa Bopape, said she was proud of Sadike and she believed that he would go far. “I wish he could be selected to be in the national squad. That will give him so much exposure,” she said.
In 2006, Sadike took part in the national swimming championships in Durban where he won a silver medal in freestyle. In the same year he won a bronze medal at a gala in the Western Cape.
In 2008 he won two bronze medals in East London for freestyle and backstroke. That same year he won three gold medals and one silver at the national swimming championships in Port Elizabeth.
In 2010, he came home with his hands full of medals after winning six silver medals, two bronze medals and two gold medals at theat the national swimming championships in Pretoria.
In 2011, Sadike won three gold medals in Pretoria and in 2013 he won a gold medal in Rustenburg in two long distance swimming competitions.
