Report to expose cheating in classifications for Paralympic sport

An investigation by the ABC Four Corners team has revealed that international and Australian Para-athletes are deliberately exaggerating their impairments in a bid to win medals.

Due to be broadcast tonight, the report will highlight cheating among para-athletes with the classification system meant to level the playing field for athletes with different impairments being abused.

Ahead of the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris, where athletes with a range of physical or intellectual disabilities will compete following the Olympic Games, former athletes and officials are calling for reform of the system used to classify impairments.

The International Paralympic Committee groups athletes into 10 classifications with the goal of minimising the impact of impairment on performance.

However, advising that system is being exploited, Xavier Gonzalez, who led the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) from 2004 to 2019 has called for a new body to enforce the rules

Speaking publicly for the first time about the scandal, Gonzalez advises that the abuse is threatening the credibility of the Games, stating "I cannot say that this doesn't exist. It exists."

The Paralympic Games are the world's third-biggest sporting event, generating tens of millions of dollars in revenue.

Former athletes and officials have told the Four Corners that the system of Paralympic classification is flawed and easily manipulated, with growing calls for fundamental reform.

As reported by the ABC insiders described a culture where classification rules were regularly bent and broken, with few repercussions for those prepared to exploit a weak system.

Stating that the responsibility for enforcing the rules of Paralympic classification should now be taken away from the organisation he led for 15 years, Gonzalez notes "we had what is called cheating in classification.

"Trying to do things with classification to win an advantage is not a thing that the Paralympic movement can tolerate."

In an IPC document, other high-ranking officials detailed their concerns.

The officials, from around the world, described how "intentional misrepresentation" of disabilities had infected Paralympic sport.

One concluded that, "the system does not work", another said there were "no repercussions for those who cheat".

Gonzalez said cases of athletes cheating during classification posed a clear threat to the Paralympic brand and a lack of resources made it difficult to address the problem, adding "if somebody wants to do it, I'm sure that they can do it."

The Four Corners report cites Stuart Jones, who represented Australia in cycling at the 2021 Tokyo Paralympic Games and world championship events in the trike class.

Having sustained an incomplete spinal cord injury in 2014 and being told he may never walk again, Jones was eventually back on a two-wheeled bike, racing competitively with local cycling clubs.

However, in para-cycling, the three-wheeled trike division - reserved for athletes who can't ride a two-wheeled bike because of "a lack of balance and/or severe restrictions in pedalling" - he won the para-cycling road nationals in the trike division in May 2017.

For more than a year, Jones competed in both two and three-wheel events interchangeably. This included racing hundreds of kilometres on his two-wheel bike across at least seven events.

National cycling body, AusCycling said it was not aware that Jones had raced on a two-wheeled bike in the years after his accident.

The report also references Australian gold medallist Amanda Fowler, a controversial figure in Paralympic sport whose career has been intensely scrutinised after she switched sports and classifications several times.

She was investigated by the IPC in 2016 over allegations of intentional misrepresentation.

However, it did not find conclusive evidence to substantiate the claims.

Fowler began her decorated sporting career as a non-disabled speed skater.

As a child, she won national titles. Then, in her early teens, she moved to para-sport.

Fowler represented Australia's national Paralympic squad, as an intellectually impaired swimmer in 2011.

Later she was competing in athletics, in a class for people with vision impairments but, by 2016, Fowler had changed her name to Amanda Reid. No longer used a white cane, and was classed as a physically impaired swimmer with cerebral palsy.

At the Tokyo Games, Reid had changed sport again, winning a Gold medal as a physically impaired cyclist with cerebral palsy.

One of the IPC's most-experienced classifiers, who headed the Paralympics' cerebral palsy sports advisory group, told Four Corners he had classified thousands of cerebral palsy athletes, and had never seen a case like Reid's in his career.

Professor Ken Richter - who also specialises in rehabilitation medicine - and who watched footage of Reid's presentations throughout the years, commented "cerebral palsy is a stable motor disease originating in the brain that occurs around birth, and it's non-progressive. It doesn't go in and out, in and out.

Four Corners was not able to speak to Amanda Reid, nor confirm if she fully understood the rules of classification and, without seeing her medical records, cannot confirm exactly what her impairments are.

Paralympics Australia said in a statement that it never condoned cheating and had no knowledge of misconduct related to classification.

Click here to watch Four Corners' full investigation into the Paralympic classifications.

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