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When defending your title isn’t an option
- Updated: September 17, 2016
How would you feel if you were defending champion but did not get to defend the title? Several Paralympians have had this experience. With so many classifications, it is not possible to offer every discipline in every championship.
While the events in an IAAF World Championships will mirror those in the Olympics, that is not always the case in IPC events. While that is understandable, it is also quite tough on the athletes concerned.
Take Ilse Hayes of South Africa. She is the reigning T13 Paralympic long jump champion and the reigning world champion at 200m, but neither event is included in the 2016 Rio Paralympic programme.
In fact, Hayes had won the T13 long jump at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing before successfully defending her title in London. She also won the event at the World Championships in both 2011 and 2013. Then the event was dropped from the programme of the 2015 World Championships and the Rio 2016 Paralympics. She said: “My long jump was taken away two years ago now. I knew about it, so …
