2017 Swammy Awards Para-Swimming Male & Female Swimmers of the Year: Vacant
Note from our editor: 2017 was supposed to be a glorious year for para-swimming. The launch of the new Para-Swimming World Series was intended to give athletes new opportunities to gain exposure, both to fans and to elite-level competition across the world. The World Championships set for Mexico City were expected to be a great event, combined with Powerlifting for a grand multi-sport event.
But things didn’t go according to plan in 2017. The Para-Swimming world has had a build-up of accusations of ‘intentional misrepresentation’ of disabilities over the last half-decade, and the shouting seems to have reached a crescendo in 2017. Swimmers have gone from able-bodied national champions to Paralympic World Record holders in a matter of months, without explanation of injury or degenerative condition. A British track athlete returned a medal, because she felt a teammate was misclassified. Swimmers have dropped 10 seconds in a day from a classification swim, that moved them to a lower classification, to a competitive swim. Officials have made threats to those who complained (and their children) that their funding could be pulled for blowing whistles. The whole system is under review, and under review again, and nobody really seems to be able to make heads-or-tails of what is happening.
And those are just the things that are within human control. After a devastating earthquake hit Mexico City, the Para Swimming World Championships had to be moved to December. This led to a scattered and disjointed championship season. A few replacement meets were cobbled together to try and catch tapers – one in Toronto, and one in Eindhoven. Many federations couldn’t afford to, or chose not to, attend the December championships. That includes powerhouse federations like Great Britain, Australia, and Ukraine that were decimated.
The Paralympic movement has long lived on the power of ‘inspiration,’ of the ability of humans to defy the world’s expectations of what athletes look like. Of late, though, the Paralympic house has begun to crumble. As visibility grows, so too do the dollars, and with the dollars comes exploitation and cheating of the movement.
As a result of recent accusations, discord, cheating, and overall chaos, SwimSwam’s staff got together and decided that we didn’t feel comfortable handing out a ParaSwimming Swimmer of the Year award for 2017. There is too much uncertainty, too many unknowns, and not enough context to fairly recognize who was the best this year. There is too much uncertainty, too much that we (nor anybody else) knows, and too many moving parts.
Instead, we’ll recognize a few surface-level highlights, in no particular order, of the 2017 season:
- American Jessica Long won 8 gold medals at the World ParaSwimming Championships, absent many of her chief rivals from the 2016 Paralympic Games.
- Brazil’s Andre Brasil won 7 gold and 1 silver medal at the same World Championships.
- Even with a smaller-than-average field, 36 World Records and 44 championship records were broken in Mexico City.
- In total, even in a post-Paralympic year, World ParaSwimming recognized (so far) 81 World Records in 2017: 55 in long course, and 26 in short course.
I want paralympic in class S9 or S10. I born with larsen syndrome.
Big problem is discrimination athletes with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. I born with Larsen Syndrome. I walk but is very severe and long fixed scoliosis and contracture left arm and severe x-foot syndrome.. Also stable hypermobilty and hypotonia. I did not correctly start of blocks, Left arm stroke and underwater kicks. Height is 159cm. My disability limited my functsionally.
Ehler Danlos and Larsen Syndrome is severe stable genetics conditions and cause multiple little functional and biomechanical limitations and cause stable large muscle power loss. Limitations is also visually. Swimming is very pshysical sport. I did not compete able-body athletes. Similar situation Down Syndrome. Athletes must battle rights in CAS.
Kristiina, have you applied for classification? Hypermobility and hypotonia are not classifiable by themselves, but athletes with hypermobility and/or hypotonia who also have an eligible impairment type *are* classifiable. With scoliosis, an arm contracture and foot deformities, you likely meet minimum disability criteria for impaired range of motion (yup, even if you are hypermobile in other parts of your body).
Hi everyone,
Taking a note from Mark here. Some of you may know me, I was a para athlete for a over a decade. I applaud Swim Swam for acknowledging the Paralympic swimming community, because other outlets certainly do not. I’ve gotten to know some of the writers and it is always fun trying to explain the classification process on deck and getting to know each other.
I understand the stance taken here because these Worlds were not what they were expected to be, because of a natural disaster that they are still recovering from. But I think not honoring a Para athlete at all is a miss. I think you can still honor the Paralympics and still… Read more »
Yep the Brits and Australians do a great job giving huge amounts of funding and accolades to the most brazen and successful cheats.
Great idea to aspire to be just like them.
And which paralympians would you bring to the table?
The Lakeisha Pattersons who are fully supported at a national and international level because she is such a great ambassador for the movement?
You see the point is who is going to decide who is a cheat and who is not?
Sometimes it is blatantly obvious as in Patterson’s case but sometimes it is not so clear cut and the only way to sort this out is to employ competent trained medical personnel to… Read more »
Wow how times have changed ,!!!
Wish the above statement was true but yet again those in charge have decided to release statements making themselves look good and the rest of us as bitter parents whose children are not quite up to scratch and find making claims of IM as away of justifying our children’s lack of achievement.
As for the British Para Nationals and classification and speaking to CP-Parent what they said is true, with CN of the GB set up and Brian Houston IPC classifier watching it turned into a farce out of the 12 swimmers up for classification there are some shocking outcomes.
The full list makes interesting reading when you look back at the swimmers times… Read more »
This is my first time posting on this site and up until Dec this year I was very sceptical of the stories of cheating in disability swimming.
With my child who has CP I have always supported them in swimming and travel all over the country to watch them compete and this time at the British Para nationals I witnessed with my own eyes a swimmer cheat the system with the full support of their parents.
This swimmer went down from S8 to S7 and to see the mother punch the air with delight as they left the classification room made me sick to my stomach, to watch my child remain the same and rightly so and yet… Read more »
Thanks for sharing your experience. One thing I’d like to see made transparent is every swimmers complete classification history both national and international. The current IPC website wipes clean the previous class but you can still look up a swimmers class history if you flip through the prior years results. I bet if you analyzed the classes of all the swimmers who are not amputees or dwarfs you would see most of them have been classed down at some point.
I fully agree with you TAA. Past classifications should not be removed at all and all documents from past classifications should be uploaded to a database for further perusal. I know of one swimmer who was an S8 their whole career until recently. This swimmer was attacked verbally and accused of IM only after they started beating the previous champion. Prior to this the champion used excuses for their poor performance until they decided to use the IM angle.
Then you have the likes of lakeisha Patterson who has been nearly every number possible. My sources tell me she started as a 14, has then become anything from a 7,8,9 to NE. Now this would make anyone with no… Read more »
Jessica won 8 medals because many of her chief rivals were the people that cheated on Scotland and Rio
You mean Lakeisha Patterson (pretend Early Onset Parkinson’s Disease, pretend Left Hemiplegic Spastic Cerebral Palsy, pretend Epilepsy), Stephanie Millward (Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis and conveniently reclassified prior to Rio at 34 years of age, on the second attempt) and Maddison Elliott – classified 3 times as S9 throughout 2015-17 and finally the last one stuck (it only took 5 years for the IPC to correct her). Elliott is obviously out of favour now the Aussies have ‘can do no wrong ‘inspirational golden girl Patterson’.
She would have won no matter what if she went her best times in Rio…
This is not correct.
Swimswam: Over a decade ago, Outside magazine took a similar stance to not cover the tour de France, for similarly principled reasons (PEDs). Well done.
I, for one, would welcome you investing in creating a report on the facts, and separately from that, an option piece along the lines of what Casey Barrett does at cap and goggles. I’m not slightly up on the details, but can imagine one person’s disability is another’s discomfort, and something very difficult to determine ‘degree of’ even if all parties are transparent and honest.
Well said Swim Dad. A report on the facts and an independent inquiry are urgently needed. Steve Long put it well in saying the IPC are doing nothing but defending themselves against the evidence of athletes cheating.
It is also true that individuals perceive pain and impairment differently but that being said it would not be very difficult for properly trained, qualified and experienced medical people to sort the sheep from the goats.
I also agree wholeheartedly. When something comes under immense scrutiny, which the IPC and it’s classification systems, processes, personnel and athletes increasingly are, it’s the best opportunity for all involved to take a step back, regroup and think. The IPC suggest that is what they are doing with their review of all neurologically impaired swimmers and track&field but they aren’t and even that proposed review is shambolic with each NGB seemingly approaching it differently i.e. not following the rules set down by the IPC (if it’s true that Australia are not providing new documentation for its athletes). In my opinion, the outcome from classification in Indianapolis was the best indication yet that the whole system is corrupt and that NGBs… Read more »
The International Paralympic Committee should be completely embarrassed by this, but they won’t be. They will say that they are studying the situation, updating procedures and training the classifiers. They will say that they are taking allegations of cheating seriously, but what they are actually doing is defending themselves against the evidence of athletes cheating. The IPC has not punished any athlete for cheating. They have not stoped any athlete from cheating. They have done nothing to prevent Intentional Misrepresentation. They have done nothing to save para swimming or the other para sports.