CEDARTOWN — Around 7 a.m. Monday, as the sky starts to lighten in Midtown, the bright yellow wheelchair should crest the final hill of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Peachtree Road Race.
Krige Schabort, wearing a yellow helmet and a blue jersey, will point his modern-day chariot to the finish line and ask his shoulders, triceps, forearms and abs to give him a little bit more in hopes of winning the Peachtree for the fourth time.
Schabort, 47, has lived half his life without his legs, the result of a missile strike in Angola when Schabort was a corporal in the South African army.
He began racing a year later and has won dozens of races of different lengths and varieties, including Thursday’s Cedartown 5K, a warm-up for the Peachtree and a race that wouldn’t exist if he hadn’t moved there in 1998 so his wife could continue her work as an occupational therapist.
Schabort now is considered a godfather of wheelchair athletes, one who has provided advice to dozens of up-and-coming racers. Though not as fast as he once was, he will rely on his experience to beat those whom he has helped in the race.
Sitting at his cozy home while two of his three kids play outside on a tree-lined street in Cedartown, Schabort says this isn’t how he imagined his life would be growing up as a surfer and a top-of-the-class student near Cape Town. However, losing his legs has provided him opportunities that he dreamed about, but never thought possible.
“I don’t want to change the tide,” Schabort said in his Afrikaan accent. “I have the most fantastic family life. I’m a stay-at-home dad. I can still compete as an athlete. I have basically a normal life. It’s a lot more exciting than if I would have had legs.”
The accident
Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, as the sun beat down on southern Africa, the jets flew overhead.
Schabort was roasting a chicken on a spit. He looked up into the sky, but didn’t give the fighter planes much thought. They flew by constantly. It was Nov. 7, 1987.
He had been called up from reserve duty in the South African army in a war with Russian-backed communists in Angola on the western coast of the continent. Schabort, an engineering student before his call-up, volunteered to go into the country to make maps of a base the army captured.
As the chicken continued to cook, Schabort thought about the jets again. They flew from South Africa north every morning. He wasn’t used to seeing them going the other way at such a high altitude.
The jets turned and came in over the treetops. They were Russian MiGs. “By the time they were over us, it was so quick, the sound hits you,” he said.
They dropped their bombs on the base. One landed a few yards from Schabort, blowing him backward.
When he came to, he looked over and saw the hole left in the ground by the bomb.
He looked down at his legs, which were twisted in unnatural angles. A piece of his heel, sandal still attached, lay on his chest. He brushed it aside.
“I knew I was in trouble,” he said.
He could smell burned flesh. The odor still comes to him.
His friends called for a doctor, not knowing that the outfit’s only one had gone on patrol that morning. Medics arrived and attached some IVs, but didn’t touch his wounds.
They stood over him and read Psalm 23. But he wasn’t ready to die. He prayed.
A captain recognized that Schabort had a chance. Helicopters were on the way, but he told Schabort he had to take him to a safe landing zone. They put him in a sheet and dumped him onto an Angolan flatbed truck loaded with ammunition.
“MiGs!” someone shouted.
The jets had returned. Everyone ran away from the truck, leaving Schabort by himself.
He prayed for the second time.
The jets flew past.
Because landmines were everywhere, the truck carrying Schabort drove helter-skelter beside the roads to the landing zone.
The blood loss and the rough ride caused him to drift in and out of consciousness.
They reached the landing zone around twilight and doctors went to work. They secured him enough to make the flight to a military hospital in Pretoria.
He woke a few days later. Both legs were amputated at the thigh. His left index finger also was removed. The force of the bomb ripped open a hole in his stomach that wasn’t initially diagnosed.
“I was in bad shape,” Schabort said.
But he was alive.
The recovery
Sometime in April, nearly six months after the attack, Schabort walked out of the hospital using prosthetic limbs.
He had promised himself he would walk, not ride.
A year after returning to his parents’ home and re-enrolling in school, he realized the prosthetic legs weren’t going to work well as he tried to resume a normal life. He went back to the hospital wheelchair, using it to compete in 3K and 5K events. He joined a club for wheelchair athletes and began playing basketball and competing in other track and field events, which he had done during rehab.
The next goal was to find a racing chair. “I just wanted to go and ride,” he said.
He purchased a homemade chair. The next day he drove 1,000 kilometers to compete in his first marathon.
The chair’s wheels were wiggly. A sandstorm blew skin-ripping granules into uncomfortable places. The hard back of the chair caused other issues. He didn’t have gloves, and his hands were covered in blisters.
Schabort finished and swore he was done with long races.
He wasn’t about to give up that easily, however, not after working so hard. “You quickly forget about the pains and struggles and work on things,” he said.
Schabort set a goal of competing in the Summer Paralympic Games in Barcelona in 1992. To make it, he knew he needed more experience. He left school and home in May and went to Europe to compete — and learn — from the experienced riders.
Staying in youth hostels and with friends because he didn’t have money or a sponsor, he began to compete. Just before a marathon in Berlin in September, a sponsor stepped up.
“That whole trip then made sense for me,” he said. “All the experience I gained was leaps and bounds compared to staying in South Africa.”
He finished among the top 10 in Berlin, which secured him a spot in the biggest wheelchair marathon race, held in Japan. Competing against 400 athletes, he finished third.
He later qualified for Barcelona, where he finished third in the marathon.
“From Japan, my career took off,” he said. “To me, it was a point of now I’m going to race professionally.”
The now
Schabort’s life isn’t what he thought it would be. It’s better.
He dreamed of surfing in Hawaii. With legs, he didn’t think he’d ever go. Without legs, he has been 11 times. He even rented a board and bodysurfed.
He has helped many others learn to compete as athletes. He taught Kenny Herriot, a Scottish racer, how to construct his first pair of gloves, which are invaluable to wheelchair athletes. He and Herriot are best friends, with Herriot spending as much as five months a year in Cedartown to train with Schabort. He has given tips on road racing to Tatyana McFadden, last year’s Peachtree winner who finished second Thursday in Cedartown.
Early Monday morning, as the sky starts to lighten in Midtown, Schabort hopes to be the first to cross the finish line of the Peachtree Road Race in his yellow wheelchair.
His life isn’t what he thought it would be. It’s better.
“I’m Krieg. I don’t have legs,” he said. “This is part of my identity. If I think back now, if I had legs, I can’t think of what I would be, what I would have done.”
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