For the second time since the 2012 London Paralympics, a potential Rio medalist has been ruled ineligible to compete by IPC classifiers.
Scottish swimmer Erraid Davies won a bronze medal at the 2014 Commonwealth Games at just 13 years old in the 100m breaststroke as Scotland’s youngest-ever competitor at the Commonwealth Games. She has Perthes disease, which affects her hip bones and joints.
But on the eve of this week’s British Para Swimming International Meet, one of the world’s major international para events in the leadup to Rio, a routine classification update led to a determination that her physical impairment was no longer severe enough for her to compete in disabled events.
Davies’ was one of the iconic moments for the Scottish hosts at the Commonwealth Games, as a photo of her beaming smile after the bronze-medal moment captured the hearts of the public.
The IPC classification rules and processes have taken a beating in the last few years, with some criticism coming that they’re too soft, and other criticism being that they’re at times too stringent. The latter was the case in 2015, where Paralympic gold medalist and World Record holder Ian Silverman, who is now on the varsity squad at USC, was deemed no longer eligible to compete in Paralympic events aside from breaststroke, where he competes in the SB9 class. Silverman has cerebral palsy.
The IPC launched a review in January of its para-swimming classifications process.
Davies, who previously competed as an SB9, trains at the Delting Dolphins club in Brae, which claims to be “the most northerly active club in the UK” according to its website.
Her 1:21.68 in the 100 meter breaststroke at the Commonwealth Games ties her as the 101st-fastest Scottish 100 breaststroker at age 13 in history on a combination of para and non-para athletes. She ranks 23rd among Scottish 15-year olds in the 100 breaststroke over the last 12 months.
Silverman still believes in the Paralympic movement and refuses to bash the system that removed him. No S10 athlete has endured more surgeries or more dis imitation from the IPC. I wish him well but wonder why he would give them another chance. He has collegiate swimming, a world class education and an affluent family. The IPC would be lucky, very lucky to get a young man like him as a role model. He’s not aiming to be a professional swimmer. He’s an athlete working on an education, a future and, I dare say, does not need the IPC like his S10 competitors.
Good news re Siverman, I wish him the very best of luck. His story is the perfect example of the ridiculousness of the classification process and the self-righteousness of the IPC and their ‘we stand by our classifiers’ routine response. I reckon Mr Gonzalez is being taken for a major ride if he is being told classification is being managed at all properly and fairly by his team. Silverman should never have been classed out. He was. His protest and appeal both unsuccessful. That’s incredible that 4 classifiers deemed him ineligible – let’s get their names out there please because they sure as heck don’t know CP when it’s presented to them.
Seriously, who classified Silverman? Name them if… Read more »
Complete lack of accountability rears its ugly head yet again.
How can this happen? Xavier Gonzalez and Peter Van de Vliet continue to issue the “we stand by our classifiers” line but that is now sounding increasingly ridiculous in the light of this latest blunder.
And what are we now to make of the male S9 100 freestyle world record set by Rowan Crothers when he was S9. He allegedly has an impairment which cannot possibly improve but now he is S10. So were the classifiers who made him a 9 wrong and the WR is therefore irrelevant, even though it is used as the benchmark for multiclass competition? Or is it the classifiers who made him an… Read more »
Crothers is sitting on top of the S10 class now, so go figure regarding his original classification as S9 not to mention the world records & gold medals that came with.
Something’s wrong with the way they classify for sure. I agree let’s have some transparent and get the names out there of who classes who and what the outcome was, they stick it on a wall at classification meets so let’s get it loaded up online. It can only help in the long run.
Crothers trains as hard as most Australian Olympic swimmers, has size 15 feet and is well over 195cms tall. Does doing the training and having a swimmers body shape exclude him from correct classification because those things will make him “too fast”? Lets tell the Campbell sisters that they are too fast to compete as women then and from now on can only compete against the men. There’s plenty of underwater footage of Crothers competition swimming on youtube and if you cant see the impairment in his legs then you are blind.
You have athletes pushing the boundaries of what we think is possible for disabled swimmers and their reward is to be kicked out of the competition!! Its just too random and almost a coin flip as to which class some of these swimmers get assigned. Hope they work on this with the new system they are working on.
That’s right TA and then there are others in certain classes due to their acting ability. Haven’t quite worked out what that has to do with sport but maybe I’ll be enlightened one day!
Ian Silverman is eligible for re-classification in June and will assuredly swim in Rio. The classifiers who deemed him ineligible in Canada noted the same scores for his right and left legs. Silverman was completely equinus on the left and had a cavus deformity of his left foot. His legs have never looked or moved similarly. Just to prove how inept the classifiers were, Silverman required major reconstruction of his left leg in 2015, 3 months after he was classed out. His left foot was collapsing and he was avoiding surgery because of swimming, but it could not wait any longer. His left left is still very different from the right, but now the left is weaker and has a… Read more »
So terribly sorry for this swimmer. Perthes, does this demonstrate improvement with time? This swimmer has either been classified incorrectly on the first occassion she presented (none permanent disability) or classed harshly on the second.
IPC Swimming – perhaps then abstain from classifying 12/13yr old swimmers for international Open competition, develop junior competition in parallel with Open competition instead. Swimmers like Davies are afterall developing preteens/teens. Their bodies will change.
This swimmer held sport scholarships, dreams for Rio and the love and respect of her nation on her young shoulders. The IPC are falling behind tragically when it comes to an athlete’s well being and the sponsorship & support required to be at the top of your game.… Read more »
It’s actually the third time, Victoria Arlen on the eve of IPC WC 2013.
I am so sorry for young Erraid. This is yet another high profile blunder by the bumbling idiots in charge at the IPC. Peter van de Vliet should step down from his role as ‘Medical Director’ as clearly unless an athlete presents with limb deficiency, he and his team are utterly clueless! And they even get that wrong. If anyone took a moment to check ‘minimal eligibility’ for upper limb amputtees there would be a few who found themselves classed NE – and that is one of the simplest to classify.
Who are the classifiers at this meet? Is there a common thread between classifiers?… Read more »