News
Scandal in ParaOlympics Race & Disability!
(September 01, 2012)Why has GB's only black woman Paralympian - top wheelchair sprinter Anne Wafula Strike - not been selected for the 2012 games?
She is the UK's No 1 in the 100-metre sprint, is ranked No 7 in the world and has received an A ranking in many recent international competitions.
AWS began her Paralympic career in the T53 category for athletes with no trunk function - she was paralysed from the chest down by polio at the age of 2.
But the husband of her closest rival Baroness Tanni Grey Thompson, has admitted he told officials AWF was too able bodied and should not be allowed to race in T53 with his wife.
As a result AWS was reclassified into a more able bodied category in 2006 and has just lost a six-year battle to be returned to her rightful category.
Despite a definitive medical report from one of the UK's top polio experts confirming that she is paralysed from the chest down and should race as T53.
In her rightful category Anne would be winning gold medals for team GB. Why has she been prevented from doing this.
AWS said: "I have been robbed of six years of my career. All I ask is that I can compete in the category that medical reports say I should be competing in, not in a more able bodied category."