From the [UK] Times:

Rebecca Chin, Great Britain’s 16-year-old discus thrower, was disqualified and declassified from the Paralympic Games yesterday as organizers struggled to define exactly who was disabled and who was not.

Chin had originally been classified as having mild cerebral palsy. Following her second place finish in the discus, she was told by officials that it was too mild for her to be able to compete at the games. Last week, an Irish soccer player was reclassified and told he was not disabled enough to compete. An excerpt:

Given these problems, it was bizarre that the International Paralympic Committee chose Saturday to announce that a sixth class — intellectual disability — would be returning for the London 2012 Games.

… Intellectual disability, for athletes with an IQ under 75, has been absent from the past two Games, after the Spain basketball team which won in Sydney 2000 was found to contain engineers, university graduates and only two eligible athletes in the squad of 12.

See also:

• Popovich leaves with 4 Paralympics golds — AP/USA Today
• Cheating does happen in the Paralympics — [UK] Telegraph

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 3:14 pm and is filed under exercise/sports, intellectual/developmental disabilities, international. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.