On Sunday, four-time Paralympian Ahmed Kelly was almost sitting in the stands watching the men’s 150-meter individual medley SM3 at the 2024 Paralympic Games instead of winning the silver medal.
Kelly, 32, won silver in this event at the Tokyo Paralympics and is the reigning world champion. After appearing to finish second in his prelims heat in Paris, Kelly was surprised to see that he’d been disqualified. Officials disqualified him for performing a butterfly stroke while on the freestyle leg of the individual medley. In a 150-meter IM race, swimmers race 50 meters of backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle.
Swimming Australia appealed the disqualification, which prompted a video review of Kelly’s race. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, underwater cameras “showed that although he was swimming [sic] little differently to some others, he was indeed using the freestyle method.”
“I’ve got quite a unique freestyle that may look like it’s butterfly, but in fact…it’s not exactly butterfly,” Kelly said to MSN after the final. He was born with a double arm and leg deficiency.
But even if Kelly had been judged to swim a butterfly stroke during the freestyle leg, that wouldn’t have been grounds for a disqualification. The World Para Swimming Rules and Regulations Handbook, last updated in April 2024, states in section 11.2.1 that “for the 75m or 150m individual medley, freestyle means any style other than backstroke or breaststroke,” meaning the original reason for the disqualification was not an infraction.
After review, the disqualification was overturned and Kelly was reinstated to the Paralympic final. There, he repeated as the 150-meter IM SM3 silver medalist as Josia Topf charged on the final 50 meters and claimed his first Paralympic gold.
Speaking after the final, Kelly shared “The reason [for the disqualification] surprised me because I’ve been to four Games, and they couldn’t get it right today for some reason. They make mistakes. Officials are humans. We put that behind us and tried to put a real good race on tonight. Once the decision was overturned, it was all full focus for that final. It definitely didn’t impact that race.”
Kelly was joined on the podium by his teammate Grant Patterson, and the two Australians went 2-3 in the event for the second straight Paralympics.
He was so gracious – he and Scooter are very well loved in Australia. I just cannot understand how TWO officials signed off on the DQ when it is very well known that the last leg in the 150IM cannot be backstroke or breastroke, but can be any other stroke. Ahmed won medals at WCs and Olympics doing it this way.
The on deck swimming commentator in AUS is a lawyer- she know this was BS straight away…Kelly is a star here!
Yes I mentioned how good Annabelle is on another post. Loving the commentators.
it’s just really sweet that Ahmed and Scooter got to share the podium.