Just Don't Pity Him!

He has no arms or legs but open-water swimmer Craig Dietz – who’s just aced SA’s Midmar Mile – lives life to the max. 

- Jaco Hough-coetzee

IT’S one of the biggest open-water swimming events in the world and draws competitors from near and far – so it was no surprise when one of the swimmers in last month’s Midmar Mile came all the way from the USA.

This was in fact the second time Craig Dietz tackled the challenging swim across the dam in the KwaZuluNatal Midlands. He enjoyed it so much the first time around he came back for more.

Which is all unsurprising – except that Craig has no limbs and propels himself through the water with a single blue flipper strapped to his right leg stump.

At the start of the race the 43-year-old from Harrisburg in Pennsylvania hurried into the water along with the other hundreds of swimmers, then flipped himself onto his back and started gliding easily through the water, using the flipper like a tail.

Every so often he tilted his head to look out for Odette Randelhoff, a swimming instructor from Pietermaritzburg who was swimming next to him and helping him to stay on course – because Craig swims backstroke he can’t see where he’s going.

They reached the other side of the dam a little over half an hour later, to thunderous applause from the crowd. But Craig wasn’t done yet: he crossed the dam seven times in total, clocking his best time of 36 minutes for one of the crossings.

It was a feat typical of the tenacity and spirit that’s characterised Craig all his life. Born with a rare congenital deformity called phocomelia, where the limbs are either grossly underdeveloped or absent, he hasn’t let his disability hamper anything he does.

“I’m totally independent,” he tells us a few days after the Midmar Mile when we meet at a Johannesburg hotel. Next up on his and wife Christy’s agenda is a trip to a nature reserve in the Pilanesberg before they head home to the States.