“My thought was, ‘I did it’. A sense of overall winning, not only winning that gold medal in sport but also overcoming a tough phase in my life. It’s not only for me but also for my family, that’s always an emotional one.”
Monique Kalkman – tough love and second chances
As an athlete, Monique Kalkman has won some major battles. Perhaps the first was an intensely satisfying battle against herself, to hone early tennis skills by pounding a tennis ball against the bricks of the garden wall.
Then in 1979, aged 14, when hopes and dreams were blossoming, she had to endure a traumatic fight against devastating illness that left her in a wheelchair. That she came through this with the help of her always positive, warm-hearted family was remarkable in itself. Then there was the setting out on a journey, a leap of faith, which led to her winning Paralympic gold medals in first table tennis aged just 19 and later, gold medals in tennis at successive Paralympics; earning the crown of World No:1 for six years. The best in the world!
Perhaps the most crucial victory of all however was a mental battle rather than a physical one. It was back then as that 14 year-old, overcoming the fear and pressure in rehabilitation to remain resolutely in charge of her own destiny; refusing to be defined by her disability, or to be seen as another person to process by well-meaning ‘white coats’ in a gloomy rehabilitation centre. Instead, Monique and her family concentrated on the ability rather than the disability and won through.
Fast forward nearly 40 years and last year she received a tremendous reward for what one writer has called a career made up of “grace and grit”. One of the sport’s absolute legends, Stan Smith (former US Open and Wimbledon Champion), picked up the telephone to inform Monique that she was being considered for that club of the greats, the International Tennis Hall of Fame.
And as a world champion athlete, after retiring from tennis in 1997, it would take another leap of faith 10 years later to put her neck on the block, to take seriously a new sport in golf; to trust a ‘paragolfer’ machine, learn to swing a golf club one-handed at a small ball, and find a way to convert that famous hand-eye skill from the racquet to produce exciting results on the fairway.
This isn’t exclusively a tennis story, or a golf story, it’s in some ways a story about how just as Monique has paved the way in tennis for those with a…
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