Australian Paralympian Lakeisha Patterson will carry the baton as part of the Queen’s Baton Relay for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Patterson rose to fame with her performance at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games where she won six medals and broke a world record in the 400m freestyle S8 classification with a time of 4:40.33. Her second gold medal is the 4x100m freestyle relay, which broke Australia’s world record from the London 2012 Paralympic Games by four seconds with a new time of 4:16.65. She won silver medals in the 50m freestyle, 100m freestyle, and 4x100m medley and a bronze medal in the 200m individual medley.
Check out Lakeisha Patterson’s reaction to being selected as a baton bearer.
Video courtesy of visit moreton bay region
The Games will be held in Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia, from April 4 to 15, 2018; swimming events from April 5 to 10, 2018. This will be the biggest sporting event ever held in the Gold Coast of Australia.
Swimming and diving events will be at the Optus Aquatic Centre, which features six pools, full diving facilities, and a dry diving training pit. One of the six pools at the center is a new 50-meter 10-lane competition pool. Swimming will serve as the biggest stage for para-athletes in the 2018 Games providing multiple medal events for different disability classifications.
Just seen the Aussie form for reclassification lol you can now send the form to your dr or surgeon and ask them to fill it in without them seeing you or re-examining you to see if you have your disability. Wow how long till GB send their new forms out lol might get an expert in plastic surgery boob jobs to fill in my daughters form as she is an amputee
IPC are a f**king joke
Meaning that Queenslander Lakeisha Patterson need only provide the letter that will be written for her by the APC selected South Australian Neurologist. She was born in Victoria and claims Hemiplegic CP from birth. Why then doesn’t she have documentation from her original Pediatric Neurologist who would have made the original diagnosis of Left Hemiplegic CP? I read on one of her sponsors website, AMP, that doctors didn’t expect her to walk, the IPC are seriously ridiculous and corrupt. Patterson has also been awarded the Gina Rinehart patron award. Crazy that Swimming Australia are so willing to make their patron and main financial sponsor Ms Rinehart look extremely foolish just so they can keep this embarrassing and highly unethical scam… Read more »
It gets even worse just been informed that the whole trip to see the neuro doctor would take two flights lol
You can fly London / New York in under 6 hours. Just to put this in some perspective.
Do you know if this was before or after Rio? I’d assumed before but perhaps that’s a wrong assumption. And, is it normal practice for the NGB/NSO to attend personal medical appointments with swimmers?
TAA will your NGB/NSO attend your swimmers appointment with his/her neurologist? This sounds like unethical sporting and medical practice to me.
Sometimes I give out my e mail address so people can send me evidence, and so far I have had some little gems but the latest could be gold.
If it’s to be believed Lakeisha visited a neuro specialist to get confirmation of her condition with a member of the Aussie Para team management. They paid for the report and the Dr named and his address have been passed onto the press to see what they dig up.
This swimmer has so many skeletons in her wardrobe it’s unreal
Well, well, well. Nothing surprises me now, but it should! This is shaping up to be quite the Australian / International Sporting scandal. Some ‘lucky’ ? Journalist could be about to hit big.
i don’t see anything odd about this. She has to present her paperwork to the IPC presumably she will be getting classified within the next six months. Medical info is private so what will the press be trying to dig up?
To pay a specialist to say what you want them to say for the benefit of misleading others is ethnically wrong.
To travel over 5hrs for a 2nd opinion with a team management member stinks of cheating.
So if the press dig and prove he wrote what they told him too needs to be brought to the public
Yes if true it shows that she is going to have a problem producing the necessary proof now required. Otherwise she would just submit the same report as last year cause nothing is different.
Congratulations to this young disabled star on this announcement.
I wish the haters would give it rest just for once.
This will never be put to rest until the truth is made public. This one is just too blatant and ridiculous for words.
Very helpful, thanks TAA for sending the link, will be interesting to have a look at.
Sorry to hear that your daughter has had a set back, scans would be an important method to track changes over the years.
Hopefully a tightening up on documentaion for classification can only be a good thing, scans sound like they may form an important part of a more accurate assessment, so desperately needed for the benefit of all para swimmers.
Do you know if she’s going to be running in flip flops, that seems to be her footwear of choice? Strange choice for someone who is supposedly hemiplegic and demonstrates such extreme toe walking – sometimes.
Or the lovely heels she gets around in at awards nights. Check out the photos
It’s people like you that make the situation worse for genuine swimmers with disabilities, this fraud has robbed medals from those who deserved them.
The best part is the UK Govt subcommittee has been handed evidence proving this swimmer is a fraud and I hope they act and inform the commonwealth games committee to remove the invite to carry the baton.
Disabled star? Seriously? All she is a star at is being a cheat.
Meanwhile, damning and substantive evidence that Lakeisha Patterson cheats (3 times and counting) during classification has only just been circulated during a UK Parliament DCMS Select Committee hearing into Paralympic Sport Classification abuse. What a great choice for baton bearer!!
Paralympic classification system allegedly open to abuse – Sports Integrity Initiative
http://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/paralympic-classification-system-allegedly-open-abuse/
The neuros are required to submit a cerebral MRI scan as part of their classification in 2018. lets see if Lakeisha can present a scan and prove her medical diagnosis
Will all neuros needs to provide a scan, MS, dystonia etc or is it more relevant for CP?
Good luck to LP on that one, she’ll need it!
https://www.paralympic.org/sites/default/files/document/170518140750761_2017_05_18+PI+Medical+Diagnostics+Form_WPS_0.pdf
Thats the link to the new medical form. The cerebral MRI would be the “standard” test for CP. The other conditions they will want the most relevant test I assume. CT scan, EMG etc. I went back to my daughters original hospital from 16 years ago and I have the form to request the original records, they say they have them and unfortunately she has a medical setback right now and she may end up having another scan done this month so I am wondering what a current scan would show for CP after all these years.
About bloody time!!!!
If she has to produce MRI film and not just a quack report then no she won’t be able to prove her ‘diagnosis’. However, the IPC are so corrupt they’ll just keep covering it all up.
Copies of both MRI report plus copy of scans should be provided. Too many can fudge a report.
The request for medical records should be made directly by the IPC with the medical providers. Allowing athletes and their national sports federations to handle the documents is a huge problem that should never be allowed
Good point, however the IPCs long standing and questionable handling of Lakeisha Patterson demonstrates that classification needs to be managed independently. Since 2014, she has pretended to be disabled and medalled at Commonwealth Games, Para Pan Pacs, World Championships, Paralympic Games. Goodness knows how much she’s raked in in sponsorship and funding and awards such as IPC Young Athlete of the World Para Swimming Series and Swimming Australia Ltd. Mrs Gina Rinehart Patron Award are mind boggling. The IPC are also responsible for this one.
It should come as no surprise then that the IPC thought all they need do is provide nine pages of written evidence to the DCMS Hearing instead of choosing to attend and contribute more… Read more »
LMA are you able to attach the address to the evidence on the site for people to look at.