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Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
WHEELCHAIR racing was not her first love.
She tried basketball and then wheelchair tennis, but eventually she found a home in athletics and never looked back.
Stella Jongwe has taken to wheelchair athletics with so much passion and enthusiasm, racing to always be on top of the game.
She dropped the underdog tag and started grooming herself to earn her stripes among the greatest wheelchair racers in the land.
The para-athlete has proven herself as a multi-talented athlete who has done many sporting disciplines for one reason.
She wanted to prove to society that disability is not inability, she says.
For the 21-year-old, taking part in sport was her way of proving to society that she was equally capable.
Born with phocomelia, Jongwe has used misconceptions on disability as fuel to make a name for herself in sport.
Phocomelia, according to medical experts, is a rare birth defect that affects the upper or lower limbs. In people with this condition, the bones of the affected limb are either missing or underdeveloped. The limb is, therefore, extremely shortened and in severe cases, the hand or foot may be attached directly to the trunk.
Jongwe wrote her first sporting success story in 2020 when she scooped gold at the Outeniqua Chair Challenge held in South Africa, the same year she won her first CBZ Marathon women’s wheelchair race gold medal.
She was also a bronze medallist at the African para-badminton championships held in Uganda in 2019.
This year alone she has won gold at the Victoria Falls Marathon, Tanganda Marathon and was first at the Outeniqua wheelchair challenge in South Africa.
Just last week, she won the Hope Fountain Marathon held in Bulawayo.
Her journey started at Jairos Jiri School of the disabled.
“When I was at Jairos Jiri school I noticed the discrimination that the disabled face in society,” she said.
“Instead of feeling pity on myself, I used that as motivation to take part in sport. My dream now is to reach the 2024 Paralympics to be held in Peru. I am working towards that goal and I am praying hard to see that through.”
Her dream is to one day win an Olympic medal.
“The dream is to have an Olympic medal land on my chest. That I will live to see. It is a dream that I will realise.”
She feels with more financial backing she can excel even more.
“The major problem we have is that the prize money from the competition does not compensate for the money we spend to make it for the competition which is really worrying. For now, we are just happy that the road races are coming back. This is really good for us because we get to have some competitive action.”
Jongwe hopes to follow in the path of para-Olympian Eliot Mujaji. — @innocentskizoe
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter