As Great Britain’s Daniel Bethell eased to a group stage win in the SL3 badminton over New Zealand’s Wojtek Czyz on Thursday afternoon, there was a keen observer in the stands. Jürgen Klopp, the former Liverpool manager and world’s most famous man-on-a-career-break was there to cheer on his friend Czyz, but also extol the virtues of the Paralympic Games.
Czyz is a former professional footballer who sustained an injury at 21 that required his left leg to be amputated at the knee. He is a former Paralympic long jump champion for Germany, a man who sailed around the world on a catamaran while building prosthetics, the owner of an antipodean honey company and now an elite para badminton athlete despite having dedicated himself to the sport only three years ago at the age of 41.
“He’s too crazy,” Klopp said of his friend who was beaten 21-5, 21-2 by Bethell. “We are completely different. He’s constantly doing things I’m not brave enough to do. He told me only yesterday how easy it is to dive with sharks and I said: ‘Yeah, I heard it now, I still don’t do it.’
“How was it to watch him? Great, I enjoyed all five points. He’s 44, by the way. I stood next to Elena [Brambilla-Czyz], his incredible wife, and we had tears in our eyes. I know sport is always about the result and winning, but there’s much more behind that story and being here is always so touching that I couldn’t get my head around it.”
Three months after stepping down from his all-consuming role at Anfield, Klopp appeared to be back to his jocular best as he sought to make the case not only for Czyz as a role model – “It’s the most inspiring story I’ve ever heard” – but for parasport as mainstream entertainment.
“We experienced the Olympics here in Paris and before that the world was in a big, big crisis maybe. For these two and a half weeks we forgot it, because that’s what sport can do and that’s what the Paralympics can do and there’s no difference, there’s absolutely no difference,” he said.
“The stories behind athletes are always special, because my friend is super special, but that’s the only difference really. That’s what I love about sport, that it can change the world, sometimes only for moments and sometimes for ever.”
Klopp first met Czyz as the younger man began rehabilitation after his injury. Klopp’s Mainz side played Kaiserslautern in a charity match when Czyz played for Kaiserslautern using a prosthetic leg. But an acquaintance became a friendship in 2015, just before Klopp joined Liverpool, when the pair bumped into each other by chance in Lisbon. Czyz had recently retired from athletics after winning seven Paralympic medals, four gold, in long jump and sprinting over three Games.
Klopp then turned Czyz on to sailing and Czyz developed Sailing4Handicaps, a programme that would lead to him and Brambilla-Czyz navigating the world on a catamaran, while manufacturing and distributing prosthetic limbs to amputees in developing countries.
“Sailing4Handicaps, nobody would have done that,” Klopp said. “Especially with not knowing how to sail.”
Klopp argues there should be more support for athletes hoping to sustain a career in parasport and that there should be more money from broadcasters who, he believes, are missing a trick. “We all are ready to watch much more than we show,” he said. “Broadcasting is a business, 100%, I understand that, but I really think we should show much more, because it’s so encouraging, it’s so wonderful.”
For Czyz, having been handily beaten by the man he believes is favourite for gold in the SL3 classification (for athletes with lower body impairments), the Paris Games are an experience from which to learn and grow.
“I gave it all. I tried everything but this guy, he has an answer for every shot,” he said of Bethell, a silver medallist in Tokyo. “You see his daily work for years. He made great progress and you can see the results.
“You can be sure that if you give me two, three years with this intensity, I definitely could battle him in a better way.
“Jürgen is family. It’s simply incredible he wants to come. But not only for me, Jürgen is here to simply make a statement that the Paralympics and parasport is amazing.
“We need people like Jürgen putting the focus on it. We are talking about full professionals dedicating their lives. If we can do something so the next generation will be able to get an easier approach to the sport, it doesn’t matter if it’s badminton, athletics or whatever, we need to provide a better access, a better support. That is what we are here for.”
Will Czyz invite his friend back for future matches? “I don’t know,” he said. “He might be a bit of a curse.”
