‘You don't have to pity us’: Duo trains hard to break disability stereotypes

For three hours that’s what they were up to. “Three hours? Why couldn’t you take a rest and perhaps hit the gym tomorrow,” I ask with concern.

“No, we are fine. You don’t have to pity us,” says Moipo.

The two para-athletes are a living testimony of the old-fashioned cliché that when life throws you lemons, you make lemonade, don’t whine.

Losing arms

Both Moipo and Kiplagat are missing their right and left arms respectively. But their disabilities have not deterred them from their goals which seem to be the same, win Kenya as many medals as possible.

They remind me, that had they felt sorry for themselves like most people do, something they hate, they would never have made the Kenya Paralympic team which has seen them tour the world representing Kenya.

“We have no reason not to show up and put in the work. We can't sit back and say we can’t do it simply because we are persons living with disability. Save for the missing hand, we are healthy. There is nothing you can do that we can’t. If you can do squat rest assured, so can we. It breaks my heart when people come up to us with this ‘woyiee’ attitude,” says Moipo.

Because most people feel sorry for them, it has also affected their fitness journey.

"Getting gyms to accept us wasn't easy. We were turned away from several gyms before we were accepted here. It's been stressful because most gyms see us as a liability. Not even our explanation that we are professional athletes would change their minds. I mean, we represented Kenya at the Paralympics, at least that would be something to consider before turning us away," says Kiplagat.

Kiplagat has represented Kenya three times, at the World Championships 2024 in Japan, World Grand Prix 2023 in Morocco and Paralympic Qualifiers 2024 in Dubai.

“At the Grand Prix the results weren’t good I finished fourth throwing 36 metres. There was much improvement in Dubai where I threw 45 metres winning a bronze medal. In Japan, the results got even better throwing my personal best of 52.5 metres. But it was disappointing because I missed the cut to the Paralympics with just half a metre,” says Kiplagat.

For her training partner Moipo, Javelin wasn’t her first love, taekwondo was. After completing high school, she met para taekwondo athlete Patrick Lalkalepi who introduced her to the game. She briefly trained under coach Francis Odak who runs a taekwondo club in Nanyuki before moving to Nairobi where she began training under the national team coach Philip Khaemba.

Moipo would qualify for the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games without a single kick after taking part in the African Taekwondo Olympic qualification tournament in Dakar, Senegal where she found herself without an opponent.

“In Paris, the competition was stiff, I lost in the first knockout. When I came back I switched to Javelin. I love it here because you don’t get hurt, no one is hitting you with kicks. But I still participate in Taekwondo because it’s a discipline that boosts your confidence and courage,” she says.

When she was three years old, Moipo had an accident at home in Laikipia East. She fell off a table while playing and broke her right arm, and because her parents couldn't immediately afford the necessary treatment to fix it, the arm developed a severe infection that led to amputation from the shoulder down.

"In my case, I was born this way. I have never encountered any medical issues with the arm," Kiplagat says.

Even though the disabled arm is short, he can use it. He uses both arms to rack weights on the leg hack squat machine with ease.

Executing the squat away from the squat rack, Kiplagat balances the bar horizontally on his shoulder traps and uses his right hand to keep the load intact.

“The only challenge is that I can’t lift as heavy as I would love as I would struggle to keep the balance because of the short arm. Ideally, I can’t squat with a load of more than 10 kilos on either side," explains Kiplagat.

But that changes when he executes the shoulder press on the shoulder press machine. He uses both arms albeit alternating.

“With the right arm, I can lift a heavy plate, up to 30 kilos and do up to 15 kilos on the short arm. I have to train both shoulders for body posture and balance and general shoulder strength,” he says.

When performing the Bulgarian splits, you would expect him to use only his right arm to grip the load, but the left arm has mastered its way of lifting the kettlebell.

“I can use it too like anyone with two normal arms because my elbow is intact. It moves with ease. Like I said, I was born like this so there isn’t any complication.

For deadlifts, Kiplagat uses the Olympic trap bar. To support the weight on his left arm, he chains the bar using the dip belt with a chain from his shoulder and is good to go.

Javelin and strength training

Javelin and strength training go hand in hand. Currently, Moipo and Kiplagat are preparing for the Grand Prix 2025 in Morocco in April and then the World Championship slated for September in India.

Their preparation is in top gear and missing strength training sessions at the gym is not an option.

One of the most challenging aspects of javelin training is that you have to be careful about how many throws you do. In the other throwing events, you can do 30 to 40 throws a day and your body will be fine. In the javelin, the susceptibility to shoulder, back, and elbow injuries from the impact of the throw and overuse forces athletes to take fewer throws.

With fewer throws to build muscle memory and technique, the use of special strength exercises becomes even more important.

This special strength training is any exercise that mimics the throw and trains strength and power.

“We tend to be biased with the cable machines exercises to help build arms speed. We also do a lot of arms workouts from bicep curls, dumbbell one-arm shoulder press, cable curls to improve the power of the throw,” says Moipo.

These special strength exercises which also include squats and deadlifts help build the general physique of the body as they are compound exercises.

“The advantage of this special strength is that you can not only work on technique and movement of the throw without overloading your elbow or shoulder, but you can also gain strength by training with heavier equipment,” says Kiplagat.

Moipo adds; “We also do a lot of ankle exercises because the ankle is very essential in executing a Javelin technique called ‘leg block’. The block allows you to get so much power behind the throw. Javelin is a power and acceleration sport but it's also an event of finesse that lets all of your body parts work together at the very end. So how you stand, and the exercises you do have to be in sync for you to achieve the result of both good throw and physique.”

Block which is a crucial technique in Javelin is to get to a flat left foot and hold it as the right side rotates. This flat left foot allows for tremendous rotation at the finish.

Even when not competing Kiplagat and Moipo still do intense workouts.

“We just don’t train because we are athletes, it is also fitness journey that has no end. Everybody should keep fit, there isn’t any excuse not to that makes sense to me,” adds Kiplagat.

For Moipo, you don’t have to hit the gym to keep fit.

“Javelin is a sport but is also a workout that engages your entire body. If the gym isn’t your thing you should probably try javelin for fun and see what it will do to your body,” he says.

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