Britain’s leading female Paralympians have been forced to defend themselves against suggestions they are competing unfairly against athletes who are significantly more disabled than themselves as the integrity of the entire disability sport movement was called into question.
In a scandal Tanni Grey-Thompson claimed was similar to doping in Olympic sport, a parliamentary hearing was told some Paralympic athletes had their disabilities misrepresented as a thirst for medals took hold around London 2012.
Lady Grey-Thompson, an 11-time Paralympic champion, also said coaches and team managers claimed that some governing bodies were complicit with the deception and that athletes are threatened with losing their place on teams if they publicly raise concerns about perceived abuse of the classification system. “It’s somewhere between bullying and control,” she claimed.
A prominent classification campaigner, Michael Breen, suggested Peter Eriksson – former head coach at UK Athletics – exploited what he later described as a “Mickey Mouse” classification system.
Breen claimed Canadian Eriksson requested Hannah Cockroft, a paralympic champion, be reclassified and she was moved from the T54 to T34 classification for more severely impaired athletes. The inference was that Cockroft’s domination of her events since – she has won 10 world titles over 100m to 800m, often by enormous margins – is evidence she was in the incorrect class. Both Cockroft and Eriksson are understood to be furious with Breen’s comments and claim he has got his facts wrong. “Mr Breen is lying, to put it bluntly,” said Eriksson. Cockroft vehemently denies any wrongdoing.
Breen also claimed to the government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sports select committee panel that Sophie Hahn, who is a direct rival of his daughter Olivia Breen in the T38 classification for athletes with co-ordination impairment and cerebral palsy, did not belong in the same races.
Breen, a lawyer from Belfast, recounted a conversation he had with current UKA Paralympic head coach Paula Dunn, during which she informed him that Hahn was competing in the wrong class. He claimed Dunn threatened to resign over the issue but later withdrew her resignation. It is understood she has since apologised to the Hahn family for remarking on their daughter’s confidential medical information but those close to Hahn are said to be “bewildered” about her comments. Hahn said she would welcome the opportunity to provide evidence to the Committee at the appropriate time.
A spokesman for Hahn, who also has learning difficulties, said that a review in May 2016 had confirmed she was in the correct class. He said: “It is a huge credit to Sophie as a person that while she has been subjected to repeated baseless allegations of improper classification she has focuses solely on continuing to improve as an athlete.”
Tuesday’s DCMS hearing, part of a continued inquiry into sports governance, presented more questions than it did provide answers about a fiendishly complicated issue. Grey-Thompson determined that the current classification system, supposed to pit athletes against those with a similar level of disability, was not “fit for purpose.” Grey-Thompson was mainly questioned about the evidence she gathered during the duty of care in sport review she did on behalf of DCMS last year. She believes the importance placed on winning medals before London 2012, alongside an injection of money into the sport and increased sponsorship for disabled athletes may have encouraged some to try to take advantage of the system. But she said athletes across a number of sports were warned against speaking out.
“The repercussions that were reported to me were things like de-selection from the squad or the team,” she said, “a lack of access to funding and a lack of media funding. This was across a whole range of issues but it also came up with classification. In some cases people were told not to talk about classification. It could be a range of coaches, other team members, medics, a range of people who would just say ‘don’t speak out about it.’”
The absence of a proper whistle-blowing and grievance procedure was also raised by Breen, who called it “absolutely unforgivable” given the increased professionalisation of Para-sport.
The head of the British Paralympic Association Tim Hollingsworth admitted that a global, independent body to deal with classification was required. But he rejected Breen’s claim that the classification system was broken and pointedly refused to apologise to British athletes “let down” by the system.