When 18-year-old Matthias Nakat tried spikes for the first time at the Marrara athletics track it was a big deal.
The para athlete from Tanna, a small island in the south of the Vanuatu archipelago, had never run in shoes, let alone on a synthetic track, until he came to Darwin for the Arafura Games 2019.
In fact, he’d never been in a lift or a plane, seen a multi-storey building, ridden an escalator, or visited a shopping centre until he was selected to compete along with four other athletes from Vanuatu.
Vanuatu Paralympic Committee President Margaret Macfarlane said there have been many firsts for Matthias, who was born with cerebral palsy, on this trip but that the main one was watching his self-confidence grow.
“He was so ridiculed and laughed at when he was at school that he hid himself away and wouldn’t even go out anywhere with his family,” she said. “But we have a very different young man going home now.”
Ms McFarlane said Matthias comes from an island still dominated by custom and culture where women wear grass skirts and men wear sheaths.
“They are, however, becoming a lot more sensitive to those who have an impairment largely through the huge successes we’ve had with our para athletes.”
Matthias was first seen running over rough rural roads two years ago by Chris Nunn, Oceania Paralympic Committee project coordinator, who said the youngster “had serious para athletics talent.”
After talking to his parents, Matthias went to training three days a week and improved so much he was selected to represent Vanuatu in the para athletics at the Arafura Games.
“There wasn’t a dry eye when he got on the plane to leave the island,” she said. “In his culture when a boy leaves his home for the first time he is shaved in a public ceremony.
“It still makes me teary to think about this young man all shaved, with a trendy new haircut, being presented with his team uniform in front of all these high ranking people in the community.”
Matthias didn’t qualify when he competed in the 100m (T38), but as far as Macfarlane is concerned winning for her young charge was not about gaining a medal.
“Winning for him has been here competing at the Games, gaining experience,” she said.
“He had an exceptional run and having watched him for the first time other coaches are saying to us that he has a lot of talent and with the right training he can improve quite significantly between now and the 2019 World Para Athletics in Dubai in November.”
Another big win for Matthias is going back to his small village as a young man of status who has represented his country overseas. “There’s no greater gift really,” added Macfarlane.
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