Special Olympics: Disqualified for Poor Performance

She ran quicker than ever, ran the race of her life – and was punished for it ultimately. After the finish line no longer some distance from the Berlin Olympic Stadium, Leonie Spehr from Rellingen in Schleswig-Holstein concept she became sure of a medal, in any case she had are available 0.33. It took her three minutes and 25 seconds to run the 800 meters, beating her personal exceptional by way of almost a minute. But what feels like a carrying sensation grew to become out to be a sadness for the 15-year-old.

In fact, it turned into no longer the 3 quickest of this run who obtained the medals at the end, but the fourth, fifth and sixth region finishers. The trio of the pinnacle three become disqualified through the referees, not due to a false begin or unsportsmanlike conduct – however because the overall performance growth became too excessive from the organizer’s factor of view.

To understand the problem, a examine the rules of the Berlin World Games for athletes with mental or multiple disabilities helps. In swimming and athletics, the arena affiliation is the usage of a new machine for the first time. According to this, the athletes must compete for the medals in so-called classification competitions earlier than their final runs. The overall performance proven there's used to allocate the athletes to a overall performance group of 8. In the 800-meter race, for example, the 64 men have been divided into 8 organizations of 8, each of which turned into awarded three medals.

The Special Olympics as a consequence sidestep the particularly complicated question of ways disabilities and obstacles in athletic overall performance might be similar in a noticeably fashionable manner. But there also are small snags: In order to increase the possibilities of a track and area athlete to win a medal, as an example, a trainer should assist by way of withholding the actual overall performance of an athlete. A intentionally sluggish run within the type spherical might result in the athlete being categorized decrease. To minimize this danger of aggressive distortion, the rule stipulates that increases in overall performance of more than 15 percent in comparison to the non-public file declared via the coach will result in disqualification. Leonie Spehr had stepped forward by using about 21 percentage. If she had run 17 seconds slower, she might have received the gold medal – due to the fact the 2 human beings in front of her were already disqualified.

The head of the German delegation criticized the machine

In truth, Spehr’s disqualification for appearing too nicely is considered one of many. In athletics on my own, there had been a 3-digit range of disqualifications in Berlin in the first few days due to so-called overperformance. The record time of every athlete is submitted with the aid of the coaches before the event. “If an athlete has the first-class overall performance of her existence right here on website, which the teacher could not have foreseen, then she is straight away disqualified,” criticized Tom Hauthal, head of the German delegation, when asked. “This is a device that we don’t want.” Due to the mode with quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, there are enough opportunities to classify the athletes “based at the instances they run right here” instead of – as is presently the case – based at the previous excellent performance.

The division into agencies of eight in all 26 sports activities and sub-disciplines additionally resulted in a flood of medals on the Berlin Games. Of the almost 7000 athletes in general, almost every 2d person wins a medal (additionally because a few compete in numerous disciplines and rankings). In contrast to the World Games in Abu Dhabi 4 years in the past, the organizers of those video games do no longer hold a medal table, additionally in view of the various instructions. In 2019, 229 German athletes took element, returning with 118 medals, of which forty one were gold, forty seven were silver and 30 had been bronze. Well, at the house games, 413 German athletes compete.

One of them is Leonie Spehr. She and her two even quicker fighters did now not appear to were aware about the rule of thumb problems in the intervening time of the race. In the end, they had been though offered, as disqualified athletes, they every received a participant’s ribbon and a plaque on the award ceremony – which at the least resembles a medal. And over 1500 meters and 4 instances four hundred meters at least Leonie Spehr still has  chances for real valuable metal.