Written evidence submitted by Ian Jones

My name is Ian Jones and I was a disabled athlete with team GB from the ages of 16-21 as a confirmed T44 les autres athlete. I have a lower leg disability and wear callipers to walk but not to run. During the years that I competed I went to lots of competitions including World Championship, European Championship and Beijing Paralympic Games.

I always loved running. I never saw myself as particularly disabled but grabbed the opportunity of competing for my country and wearing a GB vest at age 16. It was all really exciting and I was doing something which I loved. I left education at 16 and didn’t go to college or get a job so that I could concentrate on my running.

I always finished in the top three in my class and my classification was never questioned by any of my competitors or their NGBS or any of the classifiers including the chief classifier. However, despite this and my confirmed (as opposed to review) classification status I was reclassified every year. Each year I kept my T44 status.

In December 2010 I had a car accident. On Christmas Eve 2010 I had a scan which revealed a torn rotary cuff. I was in a great deal of pain. The GB Head Coach, Peter Erickson insisted on taking me to the World Championships in New Zealand in January 2011 in spite of the injury. I told Peter that because of my injury I would not be able to compete but insisted that I go. I remember competing in the 400m against the likes of Oscar Pistorius and being in agony. I hadn’t trained for weeks and I was in a lot of pain. Inevitably I didn’t perform well and as a direct consequence of this performance I was taken off funding. I feel that I had not been forced to compete with this injury and allowed it to properly recover I would have kept my funding. This obviously had a significant detrimental effect on me.

In May 2012 I was sent to Croatia to attend another classification clinic and again I was confirmed as a T44 les autres athlete. In spite of this I had a meeting with Peter Erikson and the sprint coach, Paula Dunn and for some reason I was sent to another classification in Indianapolis at the American trials which was the last international race before selection. I was accompanied by Katie Jones. For some reason I was reclassified as a T38 athlete which is the cerebral palsy class. I was never diagnosed with cerebral palsy, I had no medical evidence saying I had cerebral palsy and I clearly told the classifiers on the panel that I did not have cerebral palsy. The whole thing was a mess.

I competed in a 400m in Indianapolis, this time as a T38 athlete to try and get a good time for selection for the London Paralympics. I was racing against people who were considerably more disabled than me and I was embarrassed to be racing with them as I felt I was so much more able. We were kept waiting for about four hours in the scorching heat before racing and then there was nobody in the race for me to compete against. I ran a poor time for me, around 54 seconds but I still beat the rest of the field by about 150 metres. My very last chance at selection was at a race in Birmingham, 3 days before the selection meeting. This time, in marked contrast I was racing against able bodied, national athletes and this time came last, as there was nobody I could really race against. Peter Erickson, was furious with me and my chances of competing at a home games were devastated.

The people who were the coaches at the time didn’t understand disabilities and these people are now in charge of Paralympic sport in the UK. There should be more disabled people involved in the coaching side of disabled sport to have empathy and understanding.

Ironically, had I been selected for London, my pb in would have won me a gold medal as a T38.

I feel as though I gave up everything for the sport I loved and then it was all taken away from me. I completely fell out of love with it and walked away. The whole experience had a major impact on me, practically, financially, emotionally and psychologically.

In my experience, classification has always been open to manipulation and has never been fit for purpose. It needs to be completely overhauled to make it safe and fair.