By Anne Wafula Strike guardian.co.uk, Thursday 6 September 2012 17.38 BST Dedeline Mibamba Kimbata (left), a Congolese Paralympic athlete, had never raced in a race chair before she arrived at the London 2012 Games. Photograph: Nick Ansell/PA While all eyes have been on Oscar Pistorius and the "battle of the blades", many other anomalies, inequalities and injustices in Paralympic sport have been overlooked. As a wheelchair racer, I am passionate about the sport: the adrenaline rush on the track, the medals, even the long hours of training. However, I have encountered many disturbing things during my career: in particular, a lack of clarity surrounding both classification of disability and selection, and the absence of a level playing field for those competing.
Classification continues to be a controversial issue. In 2008 at the Beijing Games, Rebecca Chin was disqualified for not being disabled enough. I was left paralysed from the chest down after suffering from polio when I was two. When I began racing competitively, I was given a permanent classification of T53 – this is for athletes with no trunk function, and the correct category for my disability. Yet I was pulled out of a major competition in 2006 and reclassified into a more able-bodied category (T54) after a cursory medical and fitness test. A subsequent expert medical report confirmed that I was paralysed from the chest down: the prerequisite for T53. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence, I lost the six-year battle to be returned to my rightful category – a category in which, based on the racing times I've achieved in recent years, I would win medals for Great Britain. Unlike in the Olympic Games, the criteria for Paralympic selection are not transparent. Despite being ranked number one in the UK in the 100m sprint, and number seven in the world, I was not selected for the 2012 Games. And then there is the issue of equipment – illustrated by the Pistorius row over blade length, but not confined to it. Many disabled athletes rely on equipment, and this varies in quality. Superior wheelchairs and state-of-the-art prostheses can give athletes an unfair advantage over less well-equipped rivals. How can athletes from less well-off countries possibly compete as equals when they have no access to any sort of equipment, let alone the latest Paralympic mod cons? Haitian athletes Nephtalie Jean Lois and Josue Cajuste had to borrow equipment when they arrived in the UK. In addition, I am the UK's only black female Paralympian, and more could be done by UK Athletics and others to encourage more black athletes to get involved. When it comes to able-bodied sport, of course each body is different. But what they have in common is that all of them are whole and healthy and strong. Whether a runner comes from Rwanda or Rochdale, as long as they have ground under their feet to practise on, all have an equal opportunity to win. As disabled athletes, our imperfect bodies will always be unequal: the swimmers with short legs competing against those with no legs; those with one leg racing against those with two. Some of these inequalities cannot be ironed out. But others are deliberately manufactured by human beings and must be eliminated. While it is wonderful that so many people want to celebrate the real achievements of disabled athletes, few shine a light into some of the darker corners of this sport. The same rigour that roots out injustice in able-bodied elite sport must be applied to disabled elite sport. Many Paralympic competitors are inspirational, demonstrating exceptional athleticism and overcoming tremendous adversity. For me there is no bigger thrill than tearing round the track with the wind in my face. But I want to compete with my peers, not with those who are more able-bodied than I am. And I want athletes like the Congolese wheelchair racer, Dedeline Mibamba Kimbata, to have a wheelchair as good as that of her rivals from richer countries, so that she can compete fairly with western racers. The winners and losers of the disabled world's most prestigious sporting event should not be determined by global postcodes and bank balances, nor by arbitrary classification or selection decisions. But sadly they are. More needs to be done to ensure that all disabled athletes are competing in their rightful class: the selection process must be made accountable. Athletes from poorer countries must get more support so that they can compete as equals. Ensuring justice in Paralympic sport is far more challenging than in the able-bodied equivalent, but in order to preserve the sport's integrity, it must be done. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/06/paralympic-injustice-oscar-pistorius -- Avinash Shahi MPhil Research Learner Centre for the Study of Law and Governance Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi India Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
