I’VE WON FAIR AND SQUARE, SAYS GEORGIE
GEORGIE Hermitage suppressed tears as she insisted the two gold medals she has won here so far are down to talent and hard work, not because the system was cheated to give her the best chance of winning.
on the eve of the Games, Hermitage’s former team-mate Bethany Woodward suggested the severity of disability of some British athletes was being misrepresented in order to have them assigned a more advantageous classification.
the pair, who both have cerebral palsy, used to race against each other in the t37 class but Woodward said she gave up on her dream of competing in Rio because she had become mistrustful of the way Paralympics GB classify competitors. ‘ they’ve brought in people who are not like me in terms of disability, what’s the point?’ she said. In the same newspaper article Hermitage was named as one of the athletes she had doubts about.
After winning the 400m yesterday in a world record 1min 0.53sec, Hermitage began to well up as she spoke about how difficult it had been to ignore the allegations in the build-up to the event.
‘It was tough,’ she said, ‘ but I know what’s wrong with me and I’ve got the medical records to back it up. the people making these unfounded comments about my disability have never asked what’s wrong with me so how could they know. I know what I went through and my family know what I went through with all the years of physiotherapy.’
the subject of classification is controversial and because of the endless spectrum of disability it is almost impossible to identically match athletes. But the British Paralympic Association’s chief executive tim Hollingsworth insisted the country led the way in classifications. they are later ratified by the world governing body. Hermitage admitted she was feeling wounded over the episode.
‘It’s a little bit insulting,’ she said. ‘It’s not nice to hear. But people say things in the heat of the moment when they are upset. If anyone ever wants to talk to me about what happened I’ve got nothing to hide.’
the 27-year- old, a mother to three-year- old tilly, had to overcome 35°C heat inside the olympic stadium as she beat her nearest rival by more than three seconds. earlier in the week she took 100m gold and still has the 4x100m relay to come.
‘everything is for tilly. I want her to know that you can do anything if you set your mind to it,’ added Hermitage, who was carrying a picture of her daughter inside her sports bra.
Hermitage’s room-mate in the athletes’ village, Hollie Arnold, continued the gold rush by winning the F46 javelin with a world-record throw of 43.01m in the final round.
‘I’ve had an injured shoulder for two months, so preparations have not been ideal but I tried to put that to the back of my mind and seize the moment,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect to throw that far but I’ve trained hard and rehab has even made me stronger in many ways.’
Rob davies, a former semi-professional rugby player who broke his neck following a collapsed scrum, won GB’s second table tennis gold of the week.
on the same day he sustained the injury his twin brother Richard suffered a double leg-break in a car crash on the way to see his brother play. davies, who was a hooker for Brecon RFC, took up the sport while he was being treated at Rookwood Hospital in Cardiff, a specialist spinal unit. He joined the Great Britain development squad in 2007 but at London 2012 failed to make it through the preliminary round.
Yesterday he beat 43-year- old Korean Joo Young-dae three sets to one in the final, emulating teammate Will Bayley, who won table tennis gold earlier this week.
‘I hope my twin brother enjoyed this, I’ve done it for him,’ said davies.