Jonah Lomu became rugby's first global superstar while battling kidney disease
They called him a freight train in ballet shoes. At the 1995 World Cup, a 20-year-old winger scored four tries in one semi-final against England and swept past defenders as if they were not there. That same year, doctors diagnosed the rare kidney disorder that would end his career.
Lomu was born in Pukekohe, near Auckland, on 12 May 1975, to Tongan parents from the village of Holopeka in the Haʻapai islands. Part of his early childhood was spent there with an aunt and uncle, where he became fluent in Tongan. Back in the Auckland suburb of Māngere, gang violence claimed an uncle and a cousin, so his mother sent him to Wesley College. He shone at athletics, from shot put and javelin to hurdles, clocking 11.2 seconds for 100 metres in his final year.
He began with rugby league and first played union at a tournament in Te Kuiti, staying with the son of All Black great Colin Meads. Sevens star Eric Rush played touch with him at 14 and, impressed, invited him to a tournament in Singapore the next day. Starting as a flanker, he moved to the left wing, which he called the best decision of his career. Coach Ross Cooper spotted him in 1991 and later helped pick him for New Zealand. In 1994, aged 19 years and 45 days, he became the youngest All Black ever.
His timing was perfect. Rugby union was turning fully professional, and Lomu became its biggest crowd-puller and an icon for South Auckland's Pasifika community. He finished with 63 caps and 37 international tries and shares the World Cup record of 15 tries with South Africa's Bryan Habana, compiled in only two tournaments. Off the field he backed UNICEF and often paid bills for childhood friends in Māngere.
Nephrotic syndrome, a genetic kidney condition, forced a break and then a shift to domestic rugby. He won the first Super 12 final in 1996 with the Auckland Blues and later played club rugby in Wales and France, retiring in 2007 at 32. He entered the International Rugby Hall of Fame in 2007 and the IRB Hall of Fame in 2011, and died suddenly at home in Auckland on 18 November 2015.
Source: Jonah Lomu
