Wheelchair basketball player ineligible for Paralympics – so he may amputate his leg
Die-hard ambition can be a curious thing. Some athletes who are consumed by it have gone to great lengths to slake the thirst ambition creates, especially if they’ve ever been told they can’t do something. Great Britain wheelchair basketball player George Bates is one of those athletes.
The 26-year-old is considering having his leg amputated in order to compete with his team at the 2021 Paralympics in Tokyo, he said during a BBC interview on Thursday.
Bates has been unable to walk without the help of a crutch since he was injured while playing football when he was 11. But the “complex regional pain syndrome” he suffers from does not meet the new criteria for eligibility, the Guardian reported.
“It’s an option that’s there,” Bates said when asked about amputation as a consideration. “I have appeals [forthcoming] but if all those avenues are exhausted it will have to be a consideration,” Bates said to BBC. “This has been my life for 10 years and it will be a legitimate thought if it comes down to that.”
The International Wheelchair Basketball Federation changed its classification criteria in order to comply with the International Paralympic Committee’s new code.
The classification for international players to compete ranges from 1.0 (meaning the most impaired) to 4.5 (for players with the least or minimal disability, the IWBF website states).
Bates, who originally fell in the 4.5 category, was told that he now had to go through reclassification before next year’s Games due to the IPC demands.
“The IPC have forced the international wheelchair federation to change their classification code – every disability has to fit into a small 10-point category and if you are not in any of those points you are deemed ineligible, even if they acknowledge you do have a disability which is what has happened in my case,” Bates told BBC.
“I fully agree there needs to be a process but I’m unable to walk properly – what more is needed? There will be hundreds of disabilities [like mine]. Disability is not a black-and-white thing, it’s not a tick-box situation. I find it really hard to take that someone can be registered as a disabled person and have a registered disability but won’t be able to participate at the highest level of the sport.”
Bates explained that playing wheelchair basketball when he was 13 was a coping method for him and became a wonderful outlet.
“I could finally play sport again and it was a great outlet for me. I got better and better with training and eventually got good enough to play professionally. I progressed through the GB ranks and won a European and world championships.”
The IPC responded to the Guardian, saying that Bates’s pain syndrome was not a condition that makes him eligible for the Paralympics.
“The decision to find George non-eligible was taken by the IWBF, which was asked to reassess all 4.0 and 4.5 players by the IPC ahead of Tokyo 2020 to ensure it was aligned and compliant with the code.”
Bates started a petition on Change.org for the International Paralympic Committee to review and amend its classification code. The petition had more than 600 signatures by Thursday afternoon.
“This isn’t about me,” Bates wrote on Twitter when tweeting out the link for the petition on Thursday. “There are hundreds, maybe thousands of athletes form all sports at all levels that these rules have an impact on. There should absolutely be a classification process, that is not a question. The question is how can people WITH disabilities be excluded from the only sports they can physically play?!
“There is a real need for change in the IPC classification code. As one of the many cases, I want to use my platform to implement change.”
This story was originally published July 30, 2020 at 11:35 AM with the headline "Wheelchair basketball player ineligible for Paralympics – so he may amputate his leg."