Not a huge fan of linear sports, as a whole. Ooh, which horse/dog/man/car/boat will get to the finish line before all the other horses/dogs/men/cars/boats? I’m prepared, however, to make an exception for the snappily-named LTAMix4+, which made its debut at the latest World Cup rowing regatta in Munich over the weekend.

Activating... TURBO POWER! GO, GO, GO!!!

With a name like that, you’d think, it had better be good, and – well, just look at them. Is this not something you’d want to be involved in? The LTA stands for Legs, Trunk and Arms, and the Mix bit denotes every conceivable iteration of miscibility. It’s mixed gender – two men, two women – but it’s also mixed disability, meaning you can have one blind dude, one dude with cerebral palsy, one with learning difficulties and one with a limp. Then there’s also a cox, who can be either able-bodied or disabled. Disabled: they can empathise with your impairment and pace the boat accordingly; able-bodied: they can drive you home afterwards.

The visually-impaired rowers have to wear a set of effortlessly cool goggles that block out all light, to make sure they’re properly blind and not just really, really short-sighted. Am I the only person who saw this lot, in this get-up, and instantly recalled the equation instilled in us by a decade of shoddy movie adaptations?

(People Of Mixed Backgrounds + Varying But Strangely Complementary Array Of Abilities + Cool Accessories
= Comic Book Superheroes)

I reckon there’s something going on here. LTAMix4+ may purport to be a form of disability rowing, but it clearly has a higher calling. To stand up for freedom! To fight the dark forces! To drive evil from this world, this galaxy, this universe! It even sounds like some sort of sinister, synthesised, computer interface. By the time of the next Paralympics in London, this band of misfits – let’s call them Skye, Zap, Gaia and D4 – could well be humanity’s last hope of averting a third Ice Age, and almost inevitable enslavement at the cruel hands of the Sentinels. Can you tell I’ve never read a comic in my life?

Of course when we said goodbye to Beijing at the closing of the Olympic Games, last week, it wasn’t really goodbye. Next week, the Paralympics start.

I expect there to be a fair amount of coverage and will follow with interest – just as I discovered a previously dormant interest in Synchronised High Board Diving during the last few weeks, so I expect to uncover an unknown interest in Boccia during the next few weeks.

Olympic Biscuits - midiman at Flickr

But there is the sad omission of learning disabled athletes from the Games. The Olympic spirit passes them by. There is an article from Community Care which highlights this point, confirming that

People with learning disabilities were first barred after the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney when it was discovered that members of the Spanish basketball team had falsely claimed to have a learning disability. Thousands of pounds of lottery funding for athletes in the UK has since been lost.

I worked for a few years, prior to qualifying as a social worker, with people with learning disabilities and we attended some of the sports events. Sport has the potential to bring an enormous amount of joy. We have seen that over the past few weeks.  The article goes on to add that

The International Sports Federation for Persons with an Intellectual Disability was responsible for monitoring eligibility of athletes for the Paralympics before being suspended in 2001. The IPC (International Paralympic Council) said that the verification process had been “grossly mismanaged” and that fair competition could not be ensured until the organisation got its act together.

Is there such a lack of public spirited and fair minded people in the world that these committees have to serve only themselves and not the people whom they are tasked to serve. I imagine the composition of the said committee has changed since it was accused of gross mismanagement in the process of establishing eligibility. I can only hope they are also in the process of ‘getting their act together’.

I know that cheating is an issue but to disallow all learning disabled athletes from the Paralympics seems a little more than heavy-handed. Eligibility can be a delicate matter but surely the purpose of competing is more important than actually winning. Maybe I’m just an old-fashioned gal who never made it out of the school second XI hockey team (actually no, I made it into the first team once, as a second reserve but I never actually got into the pitch!)  but enjoyed playing all the same!

Cheating has been associated with Olympic sport for many years – it is not a new thing – unfortunately – but because the publicity and sponsorship and pride are all involved, some people will do anything.

But disallowing all those who use the positive nature of sport.. it is taking a lot of potential joy away from an otherwise fine event.

A decision will be made following the Paralympic Games in Beijing as to whether the learning disabled athletes are re-admitted in time for London 2012. I personally feel it would be an injustice if they are not.

We’ve missed their presence and the Olympic movement is poorer as a result.