PARALYMPICS BRACED FOR ‘CHEAT’ STORM
SOME of the most prominent figures in British Paralympic sport could essentially be accused of cheating today in what one witness says will be an ‘explosive’ parliamentary hearing. The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee will examine whether the system of classification in British Paraathletics is fair. It has been claimed that the system is being abused intentionally. Among those giving evidence will be Michael Breen, a lawyer and the father of Paralympian Olivia Breen, who is expected to be highly critical of the British Paralympic Association. Last night he told the BBC: ‘I firmly believe the evidence will be extremely powerful, one might even use the word explosive.’ A recent BBC investigation claimed athletes were going to astonishing lengths to cheat the system, including surgery to shorten limbs to gain access to a more favourable class. The BPA is bracing itself for a chastening evidence session, with Tim
Hollingsworth, the British Paralympic Association chief executive, and 11-time Paralympic gold medal-winner Baroness Grey Thompson due to appear. But Sportsmail understands Anne Wafula-Strike, another Paralympic athlete and now a board member at UK Athletics, has submitted written evidence to the committee that could also prove hugely significant if raised by MPs. In 2011 Baroness GreyThompson’s husband admitted to The Sunday
Times that he may have helped to thwart the career of Wafula-Strike (right) when she was his wife’s closest rival. In 2006 Ian Thompson, then the wheelchair event co-ordinator for UK Athletics, complained that Wafula-Strike displayed too much body movement for her category and the Kenyan-born wheelchair athlete was moved out of the T53 class also occupied by his wife. As a consequence Wafula-Strike failed to make the GB team for the Paralympics in Beijing, and in 2011 she responded to Thompson’s confession by telling
The Sunday Times: ‘I have been robbed of five years of my career.’ UK Athletics did organise a reassessment by a doctor, who concluded her original classification was correct. But her bid to return from the T54 category to T53 before the London 2012 London Paralympics was rejected. In 2011 Thompson insisted his wife was not involved in the matter. only last week the International Paralympic Committee said they were responding to accusations that the classification system for disabled athletes was being corrupted by announcing a wideranging review. Five-time Paralympic wheelchair racing champion Hannah Cockroft told BBC Radio 5 Live ‘humiliating’ tests involving ‘sickening pain’ are used to determine which categories Para-athletes can compete in. She said: ‘I think my worst one was I had to have electrodes attached to my spine and then electric shocks sent up and down my legs to see which nerves worked. I don’t believe that anyone could go in that and know how to cheat their classification.’