Australian swimmer Lakeisha Patterson has crushed the S8 World Record in the 400 short course meters freestyle swimming at the 2016 Austrlian Short course National Championships. In the timed-final, multi-class race on Friday morning, Patterson swam a 4:42.98, which blows away the existing record done 7 years ago by American Jessica Long at the 2009 IPC World Championships. Long’s swim was a 4:46.56.
This summer, Patterson won the S8 400 free in long course at the Paralympics and broke the World Record in 4:40.33. This is a unique event where the long course World Record is actually faster than the short course World Record (in fact, it was even before Patterson broke both this year – Long had previously held them both).
Patterson won the race in the multi-class format that assigns points to each swim based on their relative proficiency as compared to their class. She’s also already grabbed a win and World Record in the 100 free (1:06.62) this week as well, and she placed 4th in the 50 free (31.22) behind Taylor Corry.
Patterson’s summer included 5 Paralympic medals, 2 of which were gold, in her first Paralympic Games.
Parkinson’s disease typically occurs in people over the age of 60 and affects males more often than females. Patterson must be one of the youngest females ever affected, yet I can’t find any case studies on her. Anybody know of anything published in medical journals?
Lakeisha Patterson claims to have Early Onset Parkinson’s Disease which she acquired at 13 years old. The correct medical term is Juvenile Parkinsonism Symptoms.
Lakeisha Patterson claimed to be working with the Fox Foundation. There is absolutely no evidence available to support her PD claim, none. No medical journals, no volunteering work with PD associations etc etc.
She also claims to have Left Hemiplegic Cetebral Palsy. The Cerebral Palsy alliance in Australia have never heard of her, yet she claimed to volunteer with them.
Her classification history lists everything from S7 to NE.
The IPC promised an investigation via 2birds law firm. She was a high priority, it came to nothing. They could find no evidence to support IM.
And where are the signs of Parkinsons?
Google signs of PD- tremor, difficulty initiating movement, shuffling gait to name a few. She certainly displays none of these.
She claims to have micrographia, which can be a symptom of PD, and to be unable to write, yet she happily signs autographs.
And as for her CP hemiplegia, onset also at age about 13 – no sign of that either- no spasticity at all.
My guess is that there is no neurologist involved. Given how little attention the IPC pay to medical documents, wouldn’t be too hard to slip through some dodgy documents.
The evidence provided to 2birds law firm was substantial. It included photographs, videos, a bio written by Patterson when she ‘developed’ PD at 13. These were all assessed by 2birds and concluded with comments from them such as :- no signs of atrophy in left leg which would be expected with a ‘dead leg’, clear video evidence of open left hand in multiple underwater footage, clear evidence of open left hand in videos and photographs I could go on. 2birds then had the task of ‘weighting’ evidence legally for the IPC. I was informed by 2birds that Lakeisha Patterson was a priority. All of which I have in writing. Prior to Rio, I was informed by Xavier Gonzalez, in writing,… Read more »
Hi Shona the only thing I could suggest is loading up said documentation for all to see. I can’t understand though how you got it as it would be classed as confidential.
Newspaper clippings are confidential? The Patterson’s love the limelight, not too difficult to collect evidence. Obviously you are out of your depth here Mary but nothing for you to concern yourself with. I have passed all my correspondence with 2birds and Xavier Gonzalez to our Minister for Sport, The Right Honorable Susan Ley. You see Mary, my concern is the involvement of many senior Swimming Australia and Australian Paralympic Committee staff in this scam. As an Australian Citizen and Tax Payer it is my right to raise suspected fraud with the proper authorities.
I was responding to Steve Longs request for information. I hope he finds it useful.
Shona
if you could would you please e mail me copies of all the evidence you sent to the IPC as i am arranging a meeting with Baroness T Grey-Thompson to high light this issue as i too believe that both of your S8 swimmers have committed IM with their classification
[email protected]
i have also raised the same issues over a couple of our British swimmers, and if i can get TGT to bring this to a wider audience then maybe the IPC will start to take notice and act hope to hear from you sooner and then ME and LP might be exposed for what they really are !!!
I would also be interested to see what you have as well if thats Okay Shona. I also have a folder of information and jpegs.
[email protected]
IPC should hold their heads in shame !!!!
Level playing field ????????
Licence to cheat ????????
Mockery of the classification system ????????
All we need now is for the other well known IM swimmers to rub the wound with classification salt and we can all sit back and watch the sport we love be ruined
Class is up for review next year….we will see what happens then. I am not that surprised by the times as I would guess she would go a lot faster in peak form
Both Patterson & Elliott are up for review next year. Both 18, adults. Both were classified twice within a 3 month period with the same results each time – Patterson S7, Elliott S9. Both reclassed during first swim Patterson up to S8 during breastroke and Elliott down to S8 during backstroke. The ‘swim twins’ classifications will indeed be very interesting. I’m sure the IPC will manage to find a junior classifier who hasn’t heard of either of them and will be easily bullied by the Australian support team. What a farce.
And so the farce goes on.
A world record swim following a solid break from training after Rio.
Is this ever going to end?
Patterson and Elliott will just continue to break their own world records over and over while the other S8s watch on without a hope of ever matching them.
The IPC couldn’t care less despite the ridiculous “we take IM very seriously” and apparently no consequences for the support staff involved with those videos.
Journalists too scared to touch it because it is politically incorrect to criticise “disabled” people.
I’m sure Patterson is very self satisfied with her “fame” and seems not to have the insight to realise that she is… Read more »
This Lakeisha Patterson ‘success’ story becomes more insulting by the day. At least Maddison Elliott has a mild form of Cerebral Palsy which affects her physically, albeit very, very mildly. Lakeisha Patterson on the other hand is a complete and out right fraud.
Let’s not get too carried away with Short Course success though – no one really bothers to compete much. What is interesting though is that Patterson broke the WR on the back of a post Rio break from training.
There’s nothing ‘disabled’ about this swimmer, nothing – an able bodied swimmer stealing opportunity from the disabled, nice job ‘Lucky’ and your Australian support crew!!!