British Paralympic athletes have been "threatened with losing their places if they speak out on issues with classification," Tanni Grey-Thompson told a panel of MPs, according to Martha Kelner of the London GUARDIAN. Grey-Thompson, an 11-time Paralympic champion, also said that coaches and team managers were "sometimes complicit in abuse of the classification system by preventing discussion of the subject in this way." The former wheelchair racer explained she found evidence of "bullying and control" to stop Para-athletes from "speaking out" and that she heard from athletes and their parents who believed "the classification system was open to abuse and had been abused by other British athletes." Grey-Thompson was the first of three witnesses scheduled to appear before the U.K. Digital, Culture, Media & Sport Committee hearing into claims British athletes "manipulated the process," with classification campaigner Michael Breen "supporting her evidence on athletes' fears." Breen said, "Athletes are really frightened, intimidated and bullied over a period of years. When you go into UKA [UK Athletics] team meetings you're told not to discuss classification. In addition to that, you're told if you step out of line they'll set their lawyers on you and then most importantly is the specter of deselection. We've seen that with our daughter Olivia who was told she would be in the relay team, then told she wouldn't and was replaced by another athlete who wasn't in relay squad. We've been used as an example." Grey-Thompson admitted "intentional misrepresentation of disability was a major problem in Paralympic sport." She said, "There will always be athletes one side of the line or the other but medals, sponsorship, media coverage have increased the issue of misclassification" (GUARDIAN, 10/31).
IN ABSENTIA: The PA reported DCMS Committee Chair Damian Collins prefaced Breen's testimony by thanking him for the "significant amount of documentation he had provided to support his evidence," but told him the panel would not be publishing it yet because it "needed more time to digest it and give those affected by it the right to reply." Collins also made it clear that the panel was "uncomfortable with the idea of Breen naming athletes he believes have cheated the system when they were not present to defend themselves." This, however, did not stop Breen from naming British sprinter Sophie Hahn as an example of an athlete who has "wrongly been put in the T38 class." He claimed this was privately acknowledged to him by British Para-athletics head coach Paula Dunn. Hahn "has been contacted for comment" (PA, 10/31). SKY SPORTS' Lia Hervey reported Grey-Thompson said of the current system, "We need to ask the question whether classification is fair and transparent and whether athletes can make an appeal or complaint in an open and fair process. Judged on what I have been told, I don't believe we can answer that question right now" (SKY SPORTS, 10/31).
