The grit that made Nengah
great
She wasn’t just the smallest person in the group; the petite
Indonesian power lifter was clearly the most fragile.
There wouldn’t have been a man under 100 kilos among the
early morning crowd of sports fanatics.
Most were well wrapped in heavy jackets stamping their feet against the
cold sweeping the open ground where young runners were preparing for a major
contest.
It was a blustery Sunday in Wellington, the capital of New
Zealand, and athlete Ni Nengah Widiasih was shivering in her thin red and white
nylon top.
At the time she was 22 and from memory weighed 39 kilos. She didn’t complain, just laughed and
windmilled her arms. Foot stamping was
out.
Suddenly her single crutch slipped on the wet grass and she
tumbled onto the touchline. The men
rushed to assist but she waved them away.
Awkwardly and slowly she struggled upright, recovered her
stick and her dignity while the embarrassed onlookers wrestled with their
consciences.
Big fit blokes ignoring a distressed maiden’s plight - whatever
happened to chivalry? But what could we do when the victim was so intent on
being independent?
That minor incident showed the measure of the woman who is
now the nation’s champion having won Indonesia’s only medal at the Paralympics.
To get her bronze she lifted 95 kilos – that’s more than twice her bodyweight,
or to put it simply, five full water-cooler bottles.
For the new hero of the Republic has the DIY (Do It
Yourself) spirit and the qualities New Zealanders admire – grit and resolve. She’s a poet (this lady is multi-talented)
and embodies the lyrics of the old Nat King Cole song Pick Yourself Up:
Don't lose your confidence / If you slip / Be grateful for a
pleasant trip
And pick yourself up / Dust yourself off / And start all over again.
Since 1893 when NZ became the first country in the world to
give all adults the vote regardless of gender women have asserted their rights
for equality in every branch of society, government, business, the professions,
the military and sport.
Former NZ Prime Minister Helen Clark, who spends her
holidays tramping mountains, is a contender for Secretary General of the United
Nations, the top job in the world body.
The Balinese weightlifter’s determination to be mistress of
her own destiny made her an honorary Kiwi, adding to her glittering collection
of medals from contests around the world.
Nengah believes she contracted polio as a four-year-old in
the isolated Balinese village of Karangasem through a doctor’s dirty
syringe. She was so badly crippled she
could only crawl. She seemed doomed to live out a short life in poverty
and pain, illiterate, unemployable, a burden on her family, getting no
government help.
Everything changed when she met Latra from the Yakkum
Foundation rehabilitation center on a quest to discover handicapped people who
needed help.
Nengah was sent to Yakkum in Yogya, got callipers, had an
operation to help correct her twisted leg and spent two months in hospital.
After physiotherapy she returned home, started school and took up power lifting,
a sport her brother I Gede Suanta had also entered.
Yakkum was started in 1982 by the late Colin McLennan a visitor
from Wellington appalled by the sight of handicapped children working as
beggars – something he’d never seen in his homeland.
The Indonesian non-government organization partnered with another
NGO, the NZ Rehabilim Trust supported by members of the public who love
Indonesia.
The Trust is chaired by businessman Bill Russell who runs a
consortium of NZ tertiary institutions offering education to Indonesians. He
invited Nengah to visit and see world-class facilities for the disabled,
including purpose-built classrooms, special sports grounds and horse riding for
the disabled.
The results of that government care are shown in the Rio statistics: NZ (population 4.5 million) sent 203 athletes
to the main games and 28 to the Paralympics.
They won four gold, nine silver and five bronze in the Olympics, and in
the Paralympics nine gold, 5 silver and seven bronze medals.
Indonesia (population 240 million) fielded 28 sports stars
to the Olympics where it collected one gold and two silver, all in badminton.
Nine athletes attended the Paralympics where the only medal
was won by Nengah. She also gained a Rp
1 billion (US $76,400) purse from President Joko Widodo for making the nation
proud. She will also get a monthly
allowance of Rp 10 million (US$ 764).
Nengah has told friends she’ll use the money to help her
family have a better life. It’s a most justified reward, but raises the
question:
If government thank-you funds can be found after athletes
have climbed the peak alone, imagine the medal tally if serious support is
given when their skills are just emerging.
Logically there must be thousands of talented Indonesians with
the potential to compete joyfully and honorably against the global superstars. As
the world’s fourth most populous nation Indonesia could be giving China and the
US a fright on the field and in the pool.
Right now in villages across the archipelago like Karangasem,
little kids with limitless faith in their abilities are dashing down roads,
splashing across rivers, leaping fences and throwing balls. To rise above the rest they need coaches and
facilities.
A 2014 report by the Demographic Institute at the University
of Indonesia estimated that between ten and 15 per cent of the population is
handicapped. Among those citizens must
be millions wanting to excel whatever their chosen field.
Will the government provide the chance? Opportunities like those given by Yakkum to
Nengah – now setting her hopes on another medal at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
(First published in The Jakarta Post 13 October 2016)
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