From gold medal-winning Wheel Black to award-winning editor and filmmaker Paralympian #156 Jai Waite has packed more into his life than many of us could ever dream. Yet the journey does not stop there, and while the Auckland-based dad-of-two remains motivated by his future career in film and television, he also nurtures some big ambitions in a new Para sport – Para table tennis.
Born and raised in Taranaki, Jai, like so many Kiwi kids, was a passionate rugby player and cricketer in his youth. However, his life was to shift in a different direction when at the age of 19, he dived into the sea and hit a sandbar while in Greece. The resulting injuries led to a paralysis from the chest down with limited function in his arms and legs.
He found an outlet for his sporting ambitions in Wheelchair rugby and memorably struck gold for the Wheel Blacks at the Athens 2004 Paralympic Games. Following his medal-winning success he received a Prime Minister’s Scholarship, which offered him the chance to study for a post-graduate degree. It was an opportunity which provided the impetus for his future professional journey.
“I had completed a degree in economics but when I thought about what I really enjoyed was making videos, so I used the Prime Minister’s Scholarship to study digital media at AUT,” explains Jai.
“Some time later Attitude were filming a documentary on the Wheel Blacks in South Africa when one of the crew said, ‘you should ask Robyn (Scott-Vincent, the director at Attitude TV) if you can work with her’. I put my name forward and started working there in 2007. It was the first year of 15 I spent at Attitude, I was so lucky to work on so many cool projects.”
With a passion for storytelling – despite admitting to “never being very good at English” – Attitude offered the perfect opportunity to indulge in his desire to work on and bring complex and sensitive subject matters to the screen.
“I love bringing people’s stories to life so that they can learn more about people with a disability, but without being too overt,” explains Jai, who also competed at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games before retiring from Wheelchair rugby after the Wheel Blacks just missed out on qualifying for the London 2012 Paralympic Games. “What is often mentioned in the Wheel Blacks documentary – Wheelblacks: Bodies on the Line – is that moment when Paralympian #223 Gavin Rolton gets into his car. It is a non-descript wide shot when the hoist rises from the boot, picks up his chair and puts it back in the boot. That to me is a perfect example of when people, through watching, learn more about people with a disability. It helps to break down barriers and stereotypes about disabled people and shows that we are not just at home watching television.”
During his decade-and-a-half at Attitude, Jai edited more than 300 television episodes and feature documentaries including the award-winning Miss Amazing (about a national self-esteem movement for girls with disabilities), In My Mind – Midlife Crisis, and Baby Charlotte.
In 2022 Jai alongside Robyn Paterson set up Sweet Productions – New Zealand’s first fully disability owned production company – which he says has allowed him to further pursue his passion for telling stories in his way.
Among his projects have included the aforementioned Wheelblacks: Bodies on the Line – which followed the Wheelblacks pursuit of a place at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games – and the recently released on Sky New Zealand and NEON – Licence to Drive – which follows the fortunes of three disabled people as they learn to drive.
While his professional career continues to go from strength and strength he has in more recent times returned to Para sport by taking up Para table tennis. Originally picking up a bat to play with his family in lockdown, he now hopes to satisfy his competitive ambitions by competing at the ITTF Oceania Para Championships in Auckland in September.
“Before my accident I played cricket and rugby and through Wheelchair rugby I got my rugby hits through the contact and smashing,” he explains. “But I never got to replicate that same feeling of hitting a ball like in cricket up until I played table tennis.”
A class 1 player, with no tricep or wrist movement, requires a lot of co-ordination to get the arm in the correct position. Hitting the ball 1,000 times a day, he also plays weekly at Manurewa Table Tennis club alongside fellow Wheel Black and Athens 2004 Paralympic Games gold medallist Paralympian #126 Tim Johnson MNZM. Coached by John Tuki, the man who guided Paralympian #230 Matthew Britz to the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, he says with few other class 1 Para table tennis players in New Zealand, he has little gauge on where he is positioned competitively.
“I don’t know how it will go,” he adds of the ITTF Oceania Para Championships. “What I do know though is I love hanging out playing with Tim and a goal could be to maybe make the Paralympics in Para table tennis. Should I achieve that goal it would allow my kids (he has two daughters aged 15 and 12) to experience a Paralympic Games for the first time.”
Given Jai’s impressive track record during a life less ordinary, he should never be discounted.
