Currently there is no marathon event for lower-limb amputees in the Paralympic games, and Great Britain’s Richard Whitehead, a bilateral lower-limb amputee, recently took his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to open the upper-limb amputee class designation in the marathon to include them. At the recent Paralympic World Championships in Christchurch, New Zealand, Whitehead petitioned the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to run in the marathon for upper-limb amputees , but was denied. The Court of Arbitration subsequently denied his appeal, but he has vowed to continue the battle to run the marathon on the Paralympic stage.
Richard Whitehead
“I expected to win my case at the Court of Arbitration so it was really disappointing,” Whitehead was quoted as saying in the Nottingham Post online, February 9. He said he was going to continue to lobby the IPC for change. “I’m not going to ask them to create a new marathon event purely for leg amputees. I just want to be allowed to run against people with lesser impairments than myself, which doesn’t seem a lot to ask.”
Whitehead added that sport is supposed to be about inclusion, not exclusion, and that he’s lobbying the IPC not just for himself, but for all disabled athletes.
The marathon is Whitehead’s race of choice; he has become the first lower-limb amputee to break the three-hour barrier for the event. Even so, he was able to bring home a gold medal for the UK in the shorter distance of the men’s 200m T42 in Christchurch.
