The wheelchair athlete is back

I think the opposing coaches should refuse to compete against her team unless they recind the measure about allowing her to score points. If everyone refuses to compete against them, the team will be pissed ... at the wheelchair girl. I see nothing wrong with allowing her to compete but scoring points is just ridiculous.

I also get a kick out of her being called a "world class athlete." Sorry, she competes in a division which has so few competitors that if you can get your chair around the track a few times you can be a national champion. It's harder for the typical high school track athlete to win a county championship than it is for her to win a national championship.

I made a similar comment in the earlier thread about this subject: Would you let a person without functioning arms compete in a swim meet using a pedalboat? Of course not, because it is not the same competition.

It boggles my mind that this girl would even consider her racing a wheelchair against runners to be fair.

I heard she hopes to have the state record for the 3200 and 1600m very soon.

Rumor has it they're building her a jump so that she can participate in the long jump as well...

Only in America!

Maybe a parapalegic child, who has to use a motorized chair will kick her ass with their super-charged motorized racing chair. Pretty soon it'll be high school drag racing instead of track.

she states she wants to compete in college..

Dumb question, but how the heck do they negotiate the turns on a flat track?

Sean Nunn

Raytown South High School

Hahaha! Just wow!

So what happens when someone actually starts competing with her and she runs over someones foot?

If I was racing against her in a crap meet, I'd wear roller blades

chachacha wrote:

So what happens when someone actually starts competing with her and she runs over someones foot?

I'm sure they'll find a way to blame it on the able-bodied athlete.

Tatyana McFadden blossomed into a standout performer on the basketball court, in the pool, on the track and on the ice rink, where she sits in a sled and uses two small sticks to play for the Junior National Paralympic ice hockey team.

But she has made her biggest mark on the track. McFadden posted a time of 16.69 seconds in the 100-meter dash last summer in Athens, finishing second behind her biggest rival -- Canada's Chantal Petitclerc, who won the event with a world-record 16.33.

If she sticks to the 100/200, I don't think others will have much to complain about: individual lanes, relatively slow speeds.

The longer races are a different story. The top women "wheel" an 800 in the low 1:50's. Eminently unfair to runners.

Hey, I haven't been able to run for 30 years (permanent injury), and my upper body (elbow, shoulder) is too messed up for me to use a wheelchair. The only appropriate thing for me is a bicycle, so that's what I get to use. See you at the track! ('scuse me while I lap you twice in a 1500...)

Sorry, first two paragraphs should have been in quotation marks.

present wrote:

See you at the track! ('scuse me while I lap you twice in a 1500...)

Hahaha right! I think if she wheelchairs in a distance race and she breaks the school record by 2 minutes, beats everyone by 3, that maybe the meet officials will wake up and realize something is wrong here.

"The agreement allows McFadden to obtain points for her team based on her performance and in a manner that is similar to how points earned by other students count for the team."

i'm just gonna throw this out there, but maybe this doesn't mean she gets to use a wheelchair in the 3000m run. maybe instead this means that she counts in a 3000m wheelchair race, and thus opposing teams are invited to put a wheelchair athlete up against her to try to earn those points too.

this seems fair to me, and it's exactly like scenarios that already exist. for example, having a racewalker race at the same time as the runners, starting on the same line to the same gun, but counting him in a racewalking event rather than the run. it saves time, and it's now a valid event. if the hosting coach wants to do a racewalk at their meet, put up a racewalker or forfeit the ten points.

so maybe all they're doing is forcing all coaches to host a wheelchair race when this girl's team is in town. if that's the case, then i don't see any rational problem with it. there's nothing wrong with the athletics commission adding a new event to outdoor track, even if it will be a long time before all the teams can find competitors to cover those events.

as far as being a danger to other athletes, if they can figure out a way to hurl hammers, javelins, and other implements of destruction, if they can find a way to put 20+ runners on the line for a 1500, if they can find a way to let people vault 15 to 20 feet in the air, if they can do all that pretty safely, then i have confidence there's a way for this girl to race safely.

the only thing i see as a potential problem is if she were to act as a rabbit. seems like in races where there are runners who could keep near her, she should have to race separately. unless rabbiting is legal in high school, i have no idea.

if it was me wrote:

If I was racing against her in a crap meet, I'd wear roller blades

ROFL

HAHAHHAA - I can't stop laughing, runners are so f*cked up in the heart.