Legally blind runner clocks 3:50 1500 but college team rejects him

This kid is colour blind and in my opinion people who are color blind should not even be classified as a disability because aside from certain jobs which require distinguishing different colors, color blindness has no effect on sharpness of vision and ability to see clearly and in fact at night color blind people tend to have sharper vision compared with people who do not suffer from color blindness.

Well, if the reason is that the public can't train on the track and it's only for the track team, that's a bit different. He's not on the track team. He is 17 and maybe it is to do with that? Need more info.

Ghost, my friend was legally blind. She wore glasses. I was surprised like you that color blindness qualifies for the paralympics. Are there other things that it effects?

Source: Your friend, Google.

"Most kinds of color blindness don't affect the sharpness of your vision. Often the only problem is trouble seeing different colors. If you have a rare and severe form of color blindness, you only see shades of black, white, and gray (achromatopsia)"

Google is not my friend but thank you for that! Although, I didn't understand why it was included for the Paralympics tbh so I found out that he has blue cone monochromacy.

(Joel likens it to the blindness one briefly experiences walking out of a dark theater into bright sunshine. Except his affliction is constant, even in moderate light. He also has a rare form of color-blindness. His sight isn’t blurry, he says, but at a distance things just blend in with each other.) This is a good article:

timesofsandiego.com

Joel Gomez is Tokyo-Bound: Encinitas Teen Running 1500 in the Paralympics

Ken Stone

He'll leave for Japan on August 11, prepping at a U.S. air base in Tokyo before a week's stay in the Olympic Athletes Village.

Link:timesofsandiego.com/sports/2021/06/25/...

Basically he has problems additional to colour blindness. I do wonder if colour blindness on its own lets someone be admitted into the Paralympics though. Thanks for the interesting dicussion.

That would be rough for certain functions in day-to-day life however I'm not sure how it impacts athletic ability enough to make you a pair of athlete. Perhaps sports with moving objects like baseball and tennis it would make more difficult but makes the world black and white and I can still run around the track without issue.

To call someone "legally blind" when you actually have good sharp vision is an egregious misnomer in my opinion. Not recognising colors is far from being "legally blind" surely?

Lots of people rushing to pass judgment on another person’s disability in this thread…

If a person were on the spectrum for cognitive disability and color blind, probably a lot more comfortable telling people color blind.

Well when an article releases trying to make us feel mad at Purdue's track team, it is only right to explore all angles. I hope you don't always take things at face value.

Are you allowed to compete in an open NCAA event with a T13 level impairment? The NCAA website says if you have a disability you can compete as long as your participation doesn't increase the risk of injury to others. I'm wondering where they draw the line on that.

The article linked on this thread literally states what his exact diagnosis is, and it certainly sounds like he does not "actually have good sharp vision." Rather the disorder is characterized by poor visual acuity, nystagmus, and photophobia. So...what exactly is your point?

I wish I had more details, but it smells like disability discrimination. Many schools have Accommodation officers that can help a student navigate accommodations for classes and what not. I imagine they could help him be afforded equal opportunity to participate in College athletics too and/or access to facilities.

I think this article takes a cheap shot at Purdue. He was probably much slower than 3:50 during the normal recruiting process. He still chose to attend Purdue even though he wasn't offered a spot on the roster - so it's a real loser move to whine about it. Surely he had other opportunities that he turned down.

Additionally, he would require a lot more time and attention than the other members of the team. Purdue has two full time coaches, one for sprints and one for distance. It would spread the coaches too thin, and his teammates would have to spend a lot of time attending to him.

and as for letting him use the track, that is a big liability concern. Letting a blind person sprint around the track at high speeds unsupervised? I smell a lawsuit coming.

most schools don't let students on the varsity track.

He ran 4:16 not even 2 months ago. That's a massive improvement

in.milesplit.com

IWU Polar Bear Invitational 2023 - Complete

MileSplits official Complete formatted results for the 2023 IWU Polar Bear Invitational, hosted by Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion IN.

Link:in.milesplit.com/meets/516064-iwu-pola...

Anyone know if the conditions were bad?

Of course they are 50% likely to die running a read light!

In what way has Purdue discriminated against the kid? Have they said he can't be on the track roster? No. Not responding to an email is not denial. There are other forms of communication this guy can use to get a response from the school. He needs to use them. Can he use the track? I don't know. Can any student use the track? On a lot of campuses that is not the case.

Instead of going into outrage mode...much like Ken Stone perpetually does...how about taking a couple of steps right in front of the athlete to get some answers.

Someone should tell Purdue that 3:50 was the gold medal winning time at the 2016 Olympics .