All these riders will be part of the Team South Africa para-cycling squad for the London Paralympics later this year.

The two events scheduled are the UCI Para-cycling Road World Cup in Rome from 25-27 May and then the Schenkon Handcycling and tricycling Championships in Switzerland from 2-6. The latter event is a P1 category event and has the greatest number of international riders taking part.

The two events will be invaluable Paralympic preparation and although they are still 15 weeks away from peaking we should still see some solid results.

Accompanying Van Dyk will be Stuart McCreadie (H hand cyclist), Madre Carinus (T2 tricyclist) and Gerhard Viljoen (T2 tricyclist).

They’ll be accompanied by team manager Mike Burns, coach Elrick Kulsen and physic Tom Paulsen.

During the gap between the two races, the team will train in Switzerland. They leave South Africa on 22 May and return 5 June.

Beijing Paralympian Roxy Burns took gold in both her track cycling events at the national championships in Pietermaritzburg that wrapped up this weekend.

Para-cycling was included in the programme at Alexandra Park.

Participating in the C4 category, Burns 500 and 3000-metre events to defend the titles she won in Bellville last year.

“I got double gold and the national titles for both my events,” said Burns after arriving back in Cape Town.

“The 500 was a great result for an outdoor track. It was a chilly day and there was a wind, but I felt good even though It was a weird sized track. Then in the 3000m I think the track size messed with my pacing (doing six and a half laps instead of 12!) so I didn’t ride a good time, even though I felt good.

“Champs were well organised and well supported, next up are the London Paralympics,” she concluded.

C2 rider Jaco Nel was another para-cyclist in action at the champs, along with Dane Wilson, Hannes Visser and Irish Matcheke.

In the C5 class, Wilson claimed gold in the time trial, beating Hannes Visser and Irish Matcheke into second and third places respectively. Wilson’s performance in the time trial almost equalled his recent World Championship time, recorded in Los Angeles in February this year, which is remarkable, given the outdoor, concrete design of the Pietermaritzburg track.

Seventeen-year-old Visser stamped his mark in the championship results by claiming gold in the pursuit event.

A newcomer to the country’s para-cycling community, 18-year old Siobhan Walker competed in her first national championships as a recently classified C3 rider. Her time trial result was most encouraging for a first time, and with training and increased stamina she’s sure to build from the base provided by the 2012 championships.

In March this year he won a gold medal in the Tri2 Category of the South African Triathlon Championship in Port Elizabeth. Just 10 days later he won two gold medals (C2 Class) at the South African Cycling Championship for the Disabled in Durban.

And this was just the beginning. One of Kydd’s big goals for the season is to defend the world title he won last year at the World Triathlon Championship.

What is exciting for Kydd is that triathlon will be included in the programme of the 2016 Paralympics in Brazil. “Hopefully, I will still be competitive enough to go to the Games then.”

Kydd is truly an inspiration to those people who are quick to complain about life not being fair. He started his cycling career in 1988 and has an impressive record to show for it. In 1996 he gained his provincial colours and a future as a professional cyclist beckoned, but a year later his life changed dramatically in a matter of minutes.

He was cycling home when a truck forced him off the road. Kydd caught up with the truck at a robot and was about to give the rider a piece of his mind. Before he could do so, however, the driver pulled away and he lost his balance and fell under the truck.

“The truck went over my leg and stopped on my hand.  It then went forward and crushed my leg again. The efforts to save my leg were unsuccessful and I had to make the decision that it should be amputated,” said Kydd.

But you cannot keep a good man down. Six months later Kydd was back on his bike with an artificial leg.

Kydd makes it clear that to quit cycling, the sport that he loves so much was never an option. “I absolutely enjoy testing myself and my body to the limit when I ride my bike.”

Not surprisingly his role model is Lance Armstrong, seven times winner of the Tour de France. “I admire Lance’s guts and determination.

“Another role model is Sarah Rienertsen, the first female above-knee amputee to have competed in, and completed, an Ironman World Championships in Kona.”

It should not be a surprise that Kydd has completed three Ironman events (3.8km swim, 180km cycle, 42.2km run), all within the allocated time limit of 17 hours.

According to The South African.com website, Pistorius made the list on Wednesday, reports Sport24. He is the only South African on the list.

The magazine wrote: “Even when the running establishment – convinced his blades provided an advantage – tried to confine Pistorius to the Paralympics, he kept pushing his limits and the limits of the human body. Now he’s won the right to compete against the world’s best. He is the definition of global inspiration.”

Pistorius has won four gold medals at the Paralympic games and holds a number of world record times for sprinting. He is also the first amputee to win an able-bodied world track medal, after the South African 4x400m relay team won silver in last year’s World Championships in Daegu, South Korea

In February this year Pistorius also won the Laureus World Sportsperson of the Year with a Disability Award.

TIME publishes the list annually. It ranges from politicians and businessmen to sport and music stars.

Pistorius also announced the news on his Twitter page on Wednesday and thanked fans for their support. “Made the @TIME’s Top 100 Most Influential People in the World List. Thank you to everyone for the support and kind words today. I’m blessed for the support you all give,” he tweeted.

Tadhg Slattery and Hendrik van der Merwe took the 100m breaststroke SB5 category in 1:42.87 and 1:43.85, respectively, well ahead of the required 1:54.10.

Brazil’s Daniel Dias also posted an A qualifying time, clocking 1:40.79 in the SB4 class.

Challis Wright finished first in the SB14 100m breaststroke heats race in a Paralympic A Qualifying time of 1:15.89.

Women power was ever present in the 100m breaststroke heats as Yvonne Smith (SB14) clocked 1:34.08, just under the Paralympic requirement of 1:34.42, while Renette Bloem (SB11) and Marike Naude (SB13) touched the wall in 1:39.93 and 1:39.91.

The finals start at 18h00 on Tuesday evening.

While they may not have won a game in the tournament, which included world champions Australia and top six countries Canada, Italy and the Netherlands, coach Patrick Fick’s mantra of playing the best to prepare themselves for the waiting challenge at the London 2012 Paralympics later this year certainly has borne fruits among the team.

After a tough week, when star player Luvuyo Mbanda’s chair was damaged on the flight over by the airline, a situation which hampered their preparations before the start of the tournament, to the shoulder injury in game one of Richard Nortje, their only professional player, Team Sasol South Africa certainly battled through adversity to show grit and determination on an unforgiving court.

So much so that they gave their best performance against the Italians, who finished fourth in the World Championships, and even outscored them in the final quarter of the late night match on Saturday.

Fick was happy with the character shown by his team, who had only started their preparations in Belgium after a five month lay-off, as opposed to the other teams, who had come off intense training camps in Europe.

“The guys gained a lot of experience and a number of guys realized they need to step up and play at that level. We lost Richard and we didn’t have one of our most experienced guys – Marius Papenfus – on the tour and the problems with Luvuyo’s chair also didn’t help us,” said Fick.

“But instead of thinking we’re in a black hole, the guys bonded together and said we’ll get out of it. We need to build on that now and take this experience and make it productive.”

The team will spend some time now in camp with French coach Frank Belen, who took his team to number two in the world, before facing Egypt at the end of the month in South Africa in their next preparation match.

“The nice thing about the adversity we’ve had is that we’ve seen the guys sharing the load and even Richard has led both on and off the court.  A lot of the guys have had a good tournament and will be stronger now that they’ve had more overseas experience.”

Team SASOL South Africa qualified for London 2012 by winning the African Qualifying Championship in Morocco last October.

While the team lost all four their games at the tournament, they were particularly competitive in the final game against a team that was ranked fourth in the last World Championships and who were expected to win easily.

Team Sasol South Africa welcomed back star player Richard Nortje for the game and put everything into the match, trailing 19-12 after the first quarter and 37-22 at half-time.

Once again it was a tough third quarter that felled them, as they fell behind 61-35 but they finished strongly, outscoring their fancied opponents 16-15 in the final quarter to end the tournament on a positive note.

The team, who came through a tough week of preparation and played four games in two days after being dormant since their win in the African Qualifying Championship in October last year, were using the tournament as part of their build-up to the London Paralympics later this year.

“We did miss a bit in the third quarter and I guess that’s a bit of a loss of concentration that we will have to work on. But we were a lot better than in the previous games, the guys were a lot more relaxed and were playing for each other and doing what they are used to,” said Fick.

Nortje led from the front again, but it was a real team effort as the team definitely improved from the form they showed when they arrived in Belgium.

“The team definitely gained a lot of experience here, and it’s good for the guys to continue to play at that level,” Fick added.

In Saturday’s earlier game South Africa had gone down 73-26 to world champions Australia.

Team SASOL South Africa will head home Sunday before they face Egypt in a camp at the end of April as the next step in their preparations for London 2012.

After a tough build-up, the team had to do without star forward and their only professional player Richard Nortje for the second game against a strong Netherlands side, ranked in the top three in the world at the moment, and while they kept up with them in the first half, a poor third quarter again put paid to their hopes of a good result as the Dutch pulled away from 24-14 to 45-21.

The result came on the back of a 76-35 defeat to Canada in their opening game, where the inactivity of the last five months since the African Qualifying tournament took its toll.

Coach Patrick Fick was still positive after the defeat, even though their lack of playing time together had been ruthlessly exposed by the Dutch. With just less than five months to go before the London Paralympics, Fick believes his policy of pitting his team against the best teams in the business will pay off by the time they get to London.

“It was always going to be tough for us after we lost Richard Nortje in our first game. He was pushing so hard that he did his shoulder some damage. We’re not too sure how his status will be for tomorrow but without him it was always going to be tough,” Fick explained.

“We’re just starting out our preparations and we can see a lot of unforced errors and turnovers happening. Players are just not sharp yet, we haven’t even started our regular club series in South Africa, so we have a lot of work to do.”

Despite the heavy defeats, Fick is hoping the time together will do the side good before they face World Champions Australia on Saturday and top European side Italy in their final two fixtures.

“There were some good performances, some of the guys are starting to take responsibility and at least the guys are sharing the ball a bit and play as a team, so some good signs, despite the score,” Fick explained.

“This is all about character-building stuff for us now, because these have been two heavy defeats for us. There is no denying that and without Richard there we will have to dig deep and show a lot of courage and character and hopefully we can play well.”

Team SASOL South Africa face Australia at 1.30pm and Italy at 7pm on Saturday.

It was a particularly disappointing result for coach Patrick Fick but understandable as the side hasn’t played in five months and Canada are ranked sixth in the world at the moment.

The South Africans have had a particularly tough run-into the tournament, as one of their players Luvuyo Mbanda’s wheelchair was damaged by the airline on the flight over and they have had to rotate chairs in their preparations, which hasn’t been ideal.

After matching the Canadians in the opening quarter, where they were behind 18-10, the team started making unforced errors as they fell further behind 30-18 by half time.

In the second half they lost playmaker and star Richard Nortje to exhaustion and a shoulder injury, which gave Canada the edge they needed to pull away in the third quarter to a 55-26 lead.

South Africa played their “small” combination in the final quarter, before allowing the entire bench a run as the minutes wound down, eventually ending up on the wrong side of a relatively big loss.

Afterwards Fick was disappointed, especially with a tougher match against Holland later tonight on the cards. “We had a couple of decent patches in the game, especially at the start, when we pressed them hard, but we made too many turnovers and didn’t look after the ball well,” said Fick.

“Our unforced errors cost us and we still make way too many mental mistakes in a game, like throwing the ball to someone who isn’t looking, and these mental breakdowns cost us big time.”

The loss of Nortje, the team’s only professional player, was particularly devastating as he will have to miss the game against the Netherlands this evening.

“In the second half I could see Richard was running out of steam and was struggling with an injury. He won’t play tonight so that will put extra pressure on our “bigs” – bigger players- like Stuart Jellows and Jaco Veljoen.

The tournament will see South Africa also face world champions Australia and the highly fancied Italy this weekend as part of their ongoing preparations for the London 2012 Paralympics.

South Africa booked their place for London in October last year by winning the African qualifier against Morocco and Egypt.

With the world’s best two teams in Netherlands and World Champions Australia taking part alongside strong challengers Italy and Canada, the South Africans will have their work cut out for them on the court as they continue their build-up to the Paralympics in London later this year.

But the team has been hampered by some logistical issues after one of their star performers Luvuyo Mbanda’s wheelchair was badly damaged in transit across to Belgium, prompting a desperate search to get him a replacement.

Unfortunately the replacement chair will only arrive shortly before Friday’s opening match against Canada, meaning that Mbanda has been unable to train for the entire week in the lead-up to the tournament.

Still, despite the setbacks, coach Patrick Fick is confident of a good showing, but admits it may be a slow start as the team have not played together since winning the Africa qualifying tournament in Morocco five months ago.

“We haven’t been together for five months now, so this is a critical competition phase for us in our preparations. We are also without one of our regulars in Marius Papenfus, who couldn’t make the trip for business reasons,” said Fick.

“The hassles we had with Luvuyo’s chair have been difficult for us, as we have lent him a chair for practice by alternating him between chairs from Stuart Jellows and Jaco Veljoen but it has been difficult. In this sport the wheelchair is almost an extension of the player and designed exactly for them so to use someone else’s chair is difficult.”

Fick believes that his mantra of playing the best in the world will pay off come London, but for now he wants a good showing against the Canadians. In a warm-up match on Wednesday night Fick’s men went down 67-41 but had an encouraging second half when the employed a man-on-man defence.

“The Canadians have gone back to experience in bringing back Patrick Anderson, one of the top players of all time.

They will give us a very tough game, but we need to keep competing on that level to build our game.”