Comment | Read Comments (1)

Thomas Poulton-White

IN order to be taken more seriously and regain the funding which helped him reach high levels the world's fourth fastest sprinter with a learning disability felt that he needed a physical disability.

Former Skyrac AC athlete Thomas Poulton-White, 28, has like many other sports people with learning difficulties, lost hundreds of pounds of funding.

Thomas, a 100 and 200m sprinter from Bradford, and national learning difficulty charity Mencap believe thousands of pounds of funding has been cut because athletes with a learning disability have now been banned from competing in the Paralympic Games.

The ban was imposed by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) in the wake of controversy at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, when members of the Spanish basketball team were found to have falsely claimed to have a learning disability.

Thomas's advocate, Di Freeman, said that before the ban was imposed they had received £300 per month, plus physiotherapy vouchers. Now they pay for everything themselves.

She said: "The psychological effect of the money being taken away was massive. Thomas thought well, I must not be good enough then'. He stopped competing as he was completely demotivated. He kept saying why are other athletes getting money to train? Are they better than me?'.

"He thought that if he was physically disabled he'd be taken seriously and he'd be able to compete again."

Thomas said: "I started running in 1996. In my first event I was spotted by England scouts and invited to train. I used to train five nights a week, three on the track and two in the gym. I wish I could still run but I can't afford to pay for it myself."

His former coach at Skyrac AC Gordon Agar, of Otley, said: "Thomas was part of a group who trained with me and they formed half of the England squad. Following what happened with the Spanish at the Sydney Paralympics, people with learning disabilities were prevented from competing at Olympic level as the definition of their disability was not visual.

"This led to their funding being stopped and this had a knock-on effect which meant that there was no funding to even take them to compete at events in this country. It is sad because a number of those athletes no longer take part in the sport."

Thomas and his family are supporting Mencap in their call to the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to make funding available immediately in order for athletes to by fully trained to compete in London 2012.

The Olympic ban will be discussed at an IPC meeting in October which could determine the future of international learning disability sport.

Also involved in discussions will be the International Sports Federation for People with an Intellectual Disability (INAS-FID).

The ban remains in place until sporting bodies are able to reach an agreement on a suitable registering system.

A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe, MP for Bradford South, was keen for athletes with learning disabilities to be allowed to enter the Paralympics.

He said: "The eligibility criteria though has to be robust to ensure there are no repeats of what happened with the Spanish basketball team in the 2000 Games.

"We urge the IPC and INAS-FID to continue to work closely together to resolve this matter as soon as possible to give intellectually disabled athletes as much time as possible to prepare and compete ahead of London 2012."

Mencap's chief executive, Dame Jo Williams, said: "These athletes are competing for Britain and they should be supported to do so. We are actively seeking the removal of the ban on athletes with a learning disability from the Paralympics and we are optimistic the ban will be lifted for London 2012.

"However, we strongly urge sporting bodies to find a solution because without immediate funding these talented athletes will not be physically ready to compete in London 2012. This would be a terrible disgrace."

Skyrac Fellrunners Last Sunday it was hot and the choice for fellrunners was between the seven miles and 1,350 feet of climb Mytholmroyd race or the slightly longer but much, much tougher Buttermere Sailbeck race which has 4,500 ft of climb.

Martin Farrar made the tough choice but four Skyrac runners chose the easy option and Duncan Asquith (55.47) finished 20th, 28th Robert Pritchard (57.39), 41st Graham Breeze (60.26) and 74th Malcolm Coles (66.32). Race winner was Adam Breaks (Calder Valley) in 46.22. You can read all about Skyrac on skyrac.org.uk Stanilands shine HORSFORTH student siblings Andrew and Bethany Staniland picked up medals in their respective county championships.

Bethany bagged a hat-trick of senior women's medals at the Oxfordshire Championships at Horspath with two golds and one silver.

She was particularly pleased with her winning 35.55metres in the discus and her 11.11metres in winning the shot as they are Oxford University AC Blues standards and set her up nicely for the Varsity Match v Cambridge.

Bethany also took silver with 35.52 mertres in the javelin.

Brother Andrew won the senior men's long jump at the Notts/Derbyshire Championships at Harvey Hadden Stadium, Nottingham, with 6.83m.

He is still only using a ten strides approach though, as in last week's BUSAs, due a persistent hamstring niggle.

At the BUSA Championships at Bedford, representing Loughborough University, Andrew came sixth out of 52 entrants with a jump of 6.93m.

This is some way below his best of 7.70m, set in 2005, however he has experienced two miserable years of continuous injury, following the rupturing of a knee ligament at the very same championships two years ago to the day.

After lots of careful rehab he at last seems to be getting back into some kind of form and was very pleased with this early season performance, giving him something positive to build upon this summer.

Otley Athletic Club With the longer summer evenings, midweek racing activity increases in the area. Tuesday night saw the first race in the popular Harrogate Summer Road Race League at Ilkley.

A large turnout of 325 runners from clubs in the area was a record for the league and a similarly large turnout of Otley AC members was apparent.

In the absence of individual champion Ian Fisher the race was won by Jon Orange of Richmond and Zetland in a time of 26 minutes and 17 seconds.

Otley's Matt Cox was second in 26:40 with Zack Whitehead fourth in 27:22.

Out of the total of 36 Otley finishers notable performances were made by Josie Hodgetts as first lady finisher (31:21, 46th overall), Tony Bourne (29:36, 22nd), Dan Lambert (30:54, 40th), Lloyd Best (31:50, 47th), Alice Butler (32:02, 60th), Karen Best (33:56, 96th), Sarah Tomlinson (39:34, 193rd) and Sarah Cardus in her first race as an Otley AC member (44:08, 271st).

The following night at the John Carr 5km race series in Esholt, Chris Carver was the first Otley AC finisher clocking a time of 19:34 for 101st place, closely followed by Michael Pickard 19.49 (114th).

Other Otley finishers were Don Buffham (22.38, 220th), Billy Rayner (23.24, 243rd), Beate Schmidt-Rohlfing (25.56, 287th) and Antonio Cardinale (26.49, 299th).

On Sunday two Otley members participated in the Ripon 10 mile multiterrain race, with Howard Jeffrey finishing 35th (69.34) and David Fox 149th (87.43).

The first month of Otley AC Juniors has seen up to 31 8-13 year olds training on a Wednesday night at 6.30pm at the rugby pitches behind Stephen Smith's on Pool Road.

Training in running, jumping and throwing events is given and potential new members are welcome to come and give it a try. See the Otley AC website for details.

Otley AC seniors meet for training at 7.15pm every Tuesday and Thursday night at Otley RUFC, Cross Green, Otley.

The club caters for every type of runner with training runs ranging from three to ten miles in distance and paced between fast (5-6 min/mile) and plodding (10-11min/mile).

Coached sessions also take place on a Tuesday night providing sessions aimed at providing structured training to improve speed and strength. All types of runner are welcome to come and join the training run most appropriate to their ability. Further details are available from otleyac.co.uk.

6:24pm Wednesday 14th May 2008

Print

Email this

Comment

Add your comment

Name:
Email: *
Location:
**
	e.g. 123-123
Comment: Please note: All HTML tags will be ignored. Format Text:
By posting a comment, I confirm that I have read and agree to the terms of use. Comments are not moderated but we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention and we may delete inappropriate postings. Please treat other people with respect. You must not post anything that is abusive, indecent, unlawful or defamatory. Remember, you are personally liable for what you post on this site. If you wish to complain about a comment, contact us here.
* Your email address will not be displayed ** To avoid register now or login