COME IN, WELCOME TO A NEW DESERT! (2ND PART)

IF YOU WANNA READ FIRST PART OF THIS ARTICLE OBVIOUS THE NEXT ARTICLE WRITTEN IN SPANISH

On 13th October 2011 at aproximately 5pm, I received a phone call from an IPC leader member. He called me from Bonn (Germany) because I had been writing some time to “IPC Athletics”. Right now Athletics for people with a sensorial disability, physical, intellectual or cerebral palsy has not an independent federation which doesn´t depend on International Paralympic Committee and to be in charge of managing this sport as IAAF (International Athletics Federation) does for athletics with people without any dissability.



[caption id="attachment_211" align="aligncenter" width="240" caption="LOGO FROM IPC ATHLETICS WHICH TOTALLY DEPENDS ON THE INTERNATIONAL PARALYMPIC COMMITTEE SO IT´S NOT AN INDEPENDENT BODY."]

This phone call took around 90min and it began in a pasionate way “I´ve already read your several pages mails”, and I answer to that “read them carefully as they have very important information”…

Some minutes later after begin the phone call I was a little stunned by this statement “…the problem is that you talk in a really technic way…” to what I clearly answered “Maybe that´s what IPC Athletics need´s to begin to work better…”.



As I wasn´t going to have many chance to talk face to face with an IPC Athletics leader, I went straight (I think it´s one of my main qualities) and began to attack against the criterium standards sistem created for World Championships in Paralympic Athletics, celebrated in Christchurch (New Zealand). I will talk about this standards now.

Ipc Athletics made public on September 30th 2009 the participation and standards criteria for World Championships Paralympic Athletics to be celebrated in Christchurch (New Zealand).

I put into question the world ranking and it´s update; I told him that celebrate an athletics event in January did not meet the basic principles of athletic periodization and it seems an ski or handball event and even I let him know “It would be worth it that you prepare a good standards and participation criteria for London because in some events I predict a real desert”.

First of all I remarked “I wouldn´t never know more than an IPC Athletics leader about these matters. I´m a simple athlete and also a researcher on Physiology applied to exercise. I'm not even a specialist in sports management”.

Then I approached the 10000m event T54 class (Wheelchair athletes without upperbody affection), whose minimum B for the World Championships was 21'00´´. To this gentleman I provided a chilling statistic. “As I want to imagine, you and people in charge of my sport should know that before January 20^th 2010 when the aussie Kurt Fearnley set a new world record in 10000m in Camberra´s Track Meet (Australia), improving the last Wold record (20´25´´Jona, Switzerland 1999) from Swiss legend Heinz Frei (111 Marathon victories). Heinz had been the only wheelchair racer in all history to complete the distance under 20´45´´, it means that your B standard (the one that you IPC Athletics guys considered optimal to have as I want to imagine, a big field was crazy) to which and because its statistical database it can be defined as a disaster, I couldn´t define where is located in the world best ranking list but I can let you know that except for that meeting celebrated in Canberra in January 2010, another celebrated in Arbon (Swiss) last June 26^th 2010, the Athens Paralympic Games and another Track Meet held in Jona (Swiss) on May 13^th in 2006 I cannot find another event where nobody else race under 21´00´´, of course unless Heinz Frei and I don´t really think in many ocassions.

What I think that it´s a really bad joke is the A standard (20´20´´), because it was five second faster than the world record (20´25´´), considering that when you made public the standards in September 2009, the record was still unbeaten”.

[caption id="attachment_212" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Just only Heinz Frei who hold World Record in the 10000m from 1999 to 2010, could attend to World Championships whe he was in his best shape in the distance. This show´s the standard was an scandal. Perhaps the 10000m does not matter to be part of London Paralympic Games, in fact, it´s not."]

[caption id="attachment_213" align="aligncenter" width="430" caption="In 2009 just two runners, World Record Holder in the distance ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele and Eritrean Tadese Zersenay would take part in the 10000m event at 2009 Berlin IAAF World Championships. It clearly show´s that if IAAF Standards for this distance would be as high as IPC Athletics, the 10000n won´t be part of the program."]

I ask a simple question after all this: Can you tell me how many people will take part in the 10000m at the World Champs? What he answer after see the registration data was “Seven athletes”… I truly expected an answer such as “This has been a disaster and we will fix it right now” but it finished in a total different way “No worries because from 2013 all your suggestions will be considered (World Championships to be held in August/Septembe, easier standards,…” … I was very clear “Do you know how much train an athlete just during a season? Do you know that I complete over 1000 sessions from now till 2013? Do you know that if any event has not enough participants at the World Champs won´t be in the Paralympic program in London 2012? Finally my clarification was convincing “I´m really worry about what´s going on with Paralympic athletics; I´m really worry you  fix impossible standards; I´m really worry about the torture you´re making to lower classes since you begin to scratch events from class T51 (Wheelchair class division with big severe dissabilities even without autonomy to get into his wheelchair), knowing that once that happen´s it´s gonna be really difficult having new athletes in this class,… ultimately I am really worried about your political action”. He answered me “Do you think it doesn´t worry to me?”…





Right after finish the phone call I had the feeling that I believe to him but suddenly I questioned to myself if these crazy standards (you read right, just defined as crazy) were the result of pure ignorance (this would seem awful to me because people who are in charge of making this qualification standards, are part of the most important authority in Paralympic Athletics). Also the standards could be fixed as a result of certain interests that should be explained to many athletes and coaches or the standards could be the result of random because as you can see in the stats table that I show you below where I compare the standards for attend to Olympic Athletics World Championships (IAAF) celebrated last August 2009 in Berlin (Germany) and the standards fixed by (IPC Athletics) for last World Championships for Paralympic Athletics celebrated last January in Christchurch (New Zealand), it seems that the criteria proposed from IPC Athletics for World Championships has a lack of something real simple but so much important and is just “LOGIC”.

[caption id="attachment_214" align="aligncenter" width="1024" caption="These statistics clearly show´s shocking numbers and that IPC ATHLETICS it´s INTERESTED ON REDUCING THE NUMBER OF EVENTS AND CLASSES AND NOT FACILITATE THE DEVELOPMENT AND EXPANSION OF THIS SPORT"]

THIRD PART WILL BE POST SOON

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Santiago Sanz

Professional wheelchair racer

Degree in Sport Sciences and Physical Activity by University of Valencia

Researcher in Physiology parameters in exercise under extreme and moderate hypoxia