Gareth Davies

The XIII Paralympic Games which ended in Beijing this week offered inspirational, and very often, awe-inspiring sporting competition from athletes who are at the forefront of their own physicality.

Yet the exponential growth of the paralympic movement reached a watershed in China, with high-profile controversies, mostly founded on disputes over 'classification', the term used by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to band athletes into separate groupings to create parity in their physical ability.

Unless something is done to create greater transparency, it threatens to undermine the credibility of the Games.

The process of classification is as complex as it is contentious, barely space here to scratch the surface, but the system uses medical evidence, examination and in-competition appraisals to check the functionality of ability, through a group of experienced classifiers.

Delve just beneath the surface, however, and classification is the greastest issue in the Games.

The paralympic movement is now under pressure to provide clarity and transparency for the watching public, and most importantly, the athletes themselves.

The most serious case of all in Beijing, highlighting both technical flaws in the system, and poor ethical judgement from the IPC was that of British teenager Rebecca Chin, a Games debutant. It was a case of the system failing the athlete, not the athlete failing the system. Chin has hyperlax ligaments in both feet and ankles, giving her excessively "bendy legs", which requires constant physiotherapy. She often suffers injuries in both lower legs.

On the eve of the Games opening ceremony, Chin was called in for re-classification by an IPC doctor, physiotherapist and jury member, and was moved from the F44 category - a class assigned to athletes with different levels of amputations, musculoskeletal impairments and congenital anomalies - into the F38 group for athletes with signs of cerebral palsy, head injury, or stroke. She was also diagnosed at the re-classification in Beijing as having mild cerebral palsy. Previously, Chin had been adjudged by an IPC classifier at the British national trials in Manchester in June 2008, as a clear F44.

In Beijing, three days into the athletics event in the Bird's Nest Stadium, with 70,000 spectators, Chin finished tenth in the shot put. The GB team heard nothing from the IPC. Two days after that, she won a silver medal in the discus, finishing behind China's Mi Na, who threw a world record of 33.67m to win in the final round.

Yet less than 20 minutes after the event, Chin was stripped of her silver medal, with classifiers having changed their minds about her physical skills set. A technical delegate statement read: "As result of reclassification of the athlete Chin Rebecca (Bib No 1518), she has been removed from the result of the event Women's Discus Throw F37/38."

Anthony Hughes, Chin's coach, told me: "Rebecca has done nothing wrong. The classification system has failed this child, and what happened during the Paralympics was an injustice. How can the IPC classify her, and then decide during the competition that she is not eligible ? That can't be right."

Peter Van Der Vliet, the IPC's medical and scientific director,
explained: "The key message is that we want to avoid these things happening. However, the chief classifier [in Chin's case Richard Brickley] is going to make a call based on fair competition. It is not something they do randomly and on purpose. It is a well-motivated, well-thought out process, done with careful consideration. The chief classifier, in this case, launched a protest under exceptional circumstances, after having found the skill sets different in the athlete from shot put to discus events."

The British Paralympic Association are dissatisfied with this. Phil Lane, chief executive of the British Paralympic Association, insists the decision taken "highlighted the inexact nature of the classification process". The GB delegation have urged the IPC "to provide more opportunities to classify athletes outside major competitions" and there are plans to appeal over Chin's re-classification.

Chin, speaking exclusively to your correspondent, and for the first time since she was removed from the Paralympics, said she felt confused, let down by the system, yet would continue her dream of winning Paralympic gold in London in 2012.

"I do feel proud to have competed for Great Britain, but I feel like the IPC rules have let me down. I feel the system isn't fair. My dream is still to be in the Paralympic Games, and my aim is to compete in 2012, even if it means I have to compete in another sport.

I feel I've done everything I have been asked to do." When the medal ceremony took place for the F38 discus, Chin was talking, off air, to Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, just outside the BBC commentary position, in the Bird's Nest Stadium. Chin had burst into tears. "I just felt like I deserved to be up there. I won't be put off. London 2012 will be my dream."

These incidents, and more, in Beijing, highlight the pitfalls of a system in which athletes are having increasingly to prove their disability. In athletics alone, almost 25 per cent of the one thousand athletes from 60 countries, were either classified, or re-classified at these Games.

Yet what the IPC appear not to have is an independent testing system, which they should consider bringing in within the London 2012 Paralympiad. What that would require, is substantial funding, which could, potentially come from the International Olympic Committee, or in future, the host city. The IPC need to act now, and get their in order before 2012, otherwise they will leave more injustices behind, and more teenage debutants crying in the wings.