Home > Sports >

Top sports court rules Paralympian Leeper cannot run in Olympics

Nov 05, 2020 04:44:20 PM
Tag :   sports   Court   rules   Paralympian
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on Monday ruled against American Paralympian Blake Leeper's attempt to compete in next year's Tokyo Olympic Games wearing prosthetic legs.

The 31-year-old Leeper, who was born without lower legs, won silver in the 400 meters and bronze in the 200 meters in the T43 class at the Paralympics in London in 2012 but wanted to emulate South African Oscar Pistorius who competed in the Olympics.

Leeper was appealing a decision by World Athletics (formerly the IAAF) in February to ban him from competing with his blade-shaped prostheses. 

While CAS said in its ruling that it upheld Leeper's argument that the World Athletics (WA) rule was "unlawful and invalid," it also decided that the prosthetics gave him a "competitive advantage." Leeper's lawyer reacted to the ruling by accusing CAS of racism.

CAS said it was unfair that WA's rule "places the burden of proof upon an athlete" but it agreed with the intention to allow disabled athletes to compete without using "mechanical aids that do more than compensate for the effect of their disability."

After hearing expert witnesses, CAS said it had "concluded that the running-specific prostheses used by Blake Leeper indeed gave him an overall competitive advantage in the 400 meters event over an athlete not using such a mechanical aid since they enabled him to run at a height that was several inches taller than his maximum possible height if he had intact biological legs."

Leeper broke Pistorius' world record in the T43 400 meters in 2017. 

The WA ban in February 2019 prevented Leeper from running at the World Athletics Championships in Doha in October 2019 even though he finished fifth in the US championships and would have made the relay squad. 

His best time was 44.38 seconds in the semifinals, well inside his own T43 record, but 1.25 seconds slower than the world record.
Related news

Copyright © 2020 PE News Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.Privacy Policy | About us