Expanse.

Expanse.

Expanse.

The northwest of Namibia offers a lot of bushland, little elevation, a lot of heat and strange names.

Imkerhof is the name of one place, Hochfeld the next village.

Where Germans used to mess around.

The next settlement is then again called Okapanda.

Above all, you can see far.

Change of scene, other side of the Atlantic, again far inland.

The Rio Paraná accumulates here to the Jupiá reservoir near Três Lagoas, the city of three lakes.

The body of water is roughly the size of Lake Constance, but only one of almost two dozen weirs of this size.

Otherwise, Três Lagoas in the mid-west of Brazil also offers a lot of bushland, few elevations and a wide view.

It's nice in both countries - until one's view is taken away.

Two young women had to find out.

The strange thing is that these events brought the Brazilian Silvânia Costa de Oliveira and the Namibian Lahja Ishitile together in the Japanese capital Tokyo: in T11, the long jump of the completely blind at the Paralympics.

The way there was very different, but their stories are as fascinating as they are depressing.

"That makes me really proud"

Ishitile is the first to set an expanse.

Your guide positions you on the marking of your run-off point and shows you the direction by stretching out your arms.

Then he runs to the jump line, aligns himself exactly in the middle and claps.

He gives Ishitile guidance.

From then on everything is routine.

Start-up, optimal number of steps.

Many guides count out loud.

The happy flag storm that occurs when long jumpers want to be as close to the jump as possible, but the big toe or even whole feet cross the black line, does not happen.

Blind people have a jumping zone of one meter.

The distance is measured at the jump step.

Ishitile comes to 4.32 meters.

At the age of seven, an infection in Namibians slowly but surely takes away her eyesight. Her mother cried every day, Ishitile reports, but her parents never stopped supporting her. This is how she gets to the right school, to the right teacher who encourages her to do sports. Ishitile becomes a para-athlete, Namibia's only one in Tokyo. “It moves me so much, it makes me really proud.” It is easy to imagine that the path to the Paralympics is a long and difficult one, as is Ishitile's path to training in Windhoek, Namibia's capital. “We're on our own and really have to work hard,” says Ishitile. Then came the pandemic: “We had financial difficulties because of the postponement. Its hard."

Ishitiles 4.32 meters is decent, but still far from the Paralympic record of 5.07 meters.

One who can break it is de Oliveira.

In 2016 in Rio, she, who lost Stargardt's disease, became Olympic champion.

“I started doing sports so I could feed my daughter.

With my victory in Rio, I was able to offer her a better future, ”says de Oliveira.

"Much, much, much support"

What she didn't know when she won in 2016: She was two months pregnant.

“After giving birth, I thought I had to stop - but no!

I did it for my daughter, for my son I really have to go on now! ”But in the competition it doesn't come together at first.

Two failed attempts.