The Paralympic cheating scandal proves that British Para-sport is a victim of its own success

Wheelchair racer Hannah Cockroft recently complained of ‘humiliating’ tests involving ‘sickening pain’ up to and including having shocks sent up and down her legs to see which nerves worked. I’ve had some experience of a test like that – and I wouldn’t choose to go through it again

Wheelchair rugby is one of the most popular Paralympic sports with audiences (GBWR)

The abuse of Paralympic classification; athletes facing bullying while operating within a culture of fear; intimidation and threats preventing people from speaking out: welcome to the dark side of “inspire a generation”.

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, one of the movement’s most respected figures, didn’t pull any punches for fear of offending its bigwigs when she appeared before MPs on the Digital, Culture, Media & Sport Committee, and nor should she have.

But one of the inevitable consequences is that the headlines will now focus on the issues the hearing raised of Paralympians and/or their coaches seeking to game the system by pretending to be more disabled than they are.

This fits with a troubling, and false, narrative surrounding the issue of disability in Britain today, one promoted by the Government as a means of making the brutal cuts it has imposed more palatable to the public. It holds that the majority of disabled people are cheats, and it is deeply damaging.

The picture painted by the Baroness was more subtle than that. It was of an evolving system that is frankly in a bit of a mess. Different sports operate very different systems. While cheating may be possible through some of them, the measures used to prevent it in others are frankly disturbing.

Thompson spoke of having pins stuck in her legs in her days as a wheelchair racer, when Para-sport was at a much earlier stage of its development.

Now? We’ve entered the electronic age. Wheelchair racer Hannah Cockroft recently complained of “humiliating” tests involving “sickening pain” up to and including having shocks sent up and down her legs to see which nerves worked.

I’ve had some experience of a test like that – for medical rather than sporting reasons – and I have to say I wouldn’t willingly go through the procedure again unless there was a very, very good reason.

Cockcroft might have to. With new rules set to take effect, she’s having her T34 classification reviewed.

There is a very real danger that the controversy over cheating – and Thompson was unequivocal that it does go on – will lead to more people like Cockroft undergoing more misery just to prove they are what they say they are. Classification cuts both ways. Some people cheat to get around it. Others are damaged by it in pursuit of them.

Meanwhile, what should be of equal, if not greater, concern are some of the other issues Thompson raised, such as the bullying she talked of, up to and including sexual abuse. Such as governing bodies, and coaches, indulging in controlling and abusive behaviour, and that culture of fear I mentioned earlier.

It speaks volumes that athletes only spoke to the Baroness, during the compilation of her “Duty of Care” report for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, on condition of anonymity.

Those issues need to be addressed with just as much urgency and it is to be hoped that the narrow focus on classification doesn’t prevent that from happening.

In many ways the Paralympic movement – and British Para-sport in general – is a victim of its own success.

It wasn’t all that long ago that, as Thompson states, other athletes participated in classification, and everyone just got on with it. The Paralympics was an afterthought; the stakes weren’t high.

Since London 2012, that has changed dramatically – and yet the policies and procedures of the movement and of the bodies that oversee its sports have suddenly found they are competing for real money, and haven’t caught up.

Meanwhile, bad actors have entrenched themselves in the system, which is in need of an overhaul that should result in greater professionalism and more independent oversight.

I suppose, if there is one positive to come from all this, it is that the Parliamentary inquiry, and the media attention it has generated, at least shows that Paralympic sport now matters.