On the Scene in Beijing -- Rowing in the Paralympics, Wheelchair Crash, First Doping Case and Fair Play Issues

Six racers crashed in the women's 500m T54 wheelchair race. (Getty Images)Race Rescheduled after Massive Crash

Three athletes must give back their medals and race again next week after the IPC admits a medal ceremony should not have happened after a wheelchair pileup on the Bird's Nest track.

Six of eleven racers in the women's 5,000 meter T54 class race were caught in the crash and didn't finish the race. Three protests reached race officials within the 30-minute window, but no order to delay reached the medal ceremony staff.

Chris Cohen, the chairman of the IPC committee that governs Paralympic athletics, says the medal ceremony was an absolute mistake and the result of miscommunication.

Cohen also called the crash the worst in a Paralympics since 1992. Several of the athletes suffered cuts and bruises; one was taken to hospital for X-rays, but proved to have no broken bones.

Keeping the Games Fair

Pakistani powerlifter Naveed Ahmed Butt tested positive for a prohibited anabolic agent just days before the Paralympics. competition, getting immediately booted from the Games and marking the first doping violating of the 2008 Paralympics.

The announcement brings back memories of 2000, when 10 powerlifters failed drug tests, accounting for all but one of the positive tests from the Sydney Paralympics. That's why powerlifters are under more intense scrutiny in Beijing.

"I can, without any doubt, say that we have challenges in the sport of powerlifting all these years and that means that there is a significantly higher number of athletes in the sport of powerlifting that are subject to our doping control testing plan," says International Paralympic Committee medical and scientific director Peter Van de Vliet.

Blood testing has been added to the anti-doping regime for the first time during a summer Games. Between both blood and urine, BOCOG will test 1,100 samples, a 70 percent increase on Athens numbers.

The IPC is also administering blood pressure tests to check for a dangerous practice called "boosting". That's when athletes with spinal cord injuries purposely inflict pain on their lower bodies - particularly the bladder - to trigger a physical response that raises blood pressure and means a competitive advantage because more oxygen goes to the muscles. Only quadriplegic athletes can cause the dangerous procedure and more research is going into the extent of the practice in elite sport. One expert says as many as 50 percent of quadriplegic athletes in aerobic events may be following the practice.

Classification Issues

The IPC is also looking to cut down on a common Paralympics controversy by urging sport governing bodies to get their classification done before the Games start.

"It puts away the burden to the athletes and the uncertainty of not knowing until the final days in what class they have been confirmed to participate," says Van de Vliet.

Classification can mean being put to taxing tests of range of motion, or degree of conditions like visual impairment, two or three times before an assignment is confirmed.

"The Peter Van de Vliet oversees classification and doping issues at the IPC. (ATR)ultimate goal of IPC as being the major event organizer of this event is that it wants to see the number of assessments to be done at Paralympic Games significantly reduced," Van de Vliet continues.

Van de Vliet notes though, that classification won't disappear from the Games, if only because the IPC sees a need for time to confirm classifications just as the Games begin.

Paralympic sport is transitioning to the IPC's new Classification Code. Published in Nov. 2007, sport governing bodies had until the start of the Beijing Games to commit to it. Now that they are signed up, the governing bodies have until the start of the 2010 Games for implementation.

The new code lays out a few simple ground rules, such as defining the governing bodies' responsibilities and listing code violation penalties - but beyond that the governing bodies are to make decisions about which abilities belong in what classes.

"They have the responsibility to first implement the series of rules to conduct the classification and to ensure that the conduct of South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius at the medal ceremony for his 100m gold medal. (Getty Images)these rules is done in a fair way," says Van de Vliet.

However, the IPC will be in the business of classification in the coming years. It is the governing body of nine sports including athletics and swimming, and governs them through committees. Some like cycling and equestrian are governed by the same federations that run the Olympic version of the sport. Others are governed by International Organizations of Sport for the Disabled.

Adaptive Rowing Debuts in Beijing

Tuesday marked the first day of Paralympic rowing -- ever.

The sport is new to the Games; today's races were all men's, women's and mixed heats. Adaptive rowing is the name applied to the sport by FISA, the international rowing federation.

The competition is taking place at north of Beijing at the Shunyi Rowing Center, site of the Olympics competition.

Day Three Competition

Paralympics' richest day - 61 golds - wraps up with Ukriane breaking into the top of the medals table, thanks in part to three golds from the Bird's Nest.

"We like Paralympics because our team is better than in the Olympics," says a photographer working for a Ukrainian agency. She spent the afternoon shooting powerlifiting, where the country picked up another gold.

South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius improved on his Athens medal results when he picked up gold in the 100m on the morning of the third day of competition. The same race earned him a bronze four years ago. He has two more races: the 200m, where he is defending champion, and the 400m, which he calls his most difficult event.

Judo finished up Tuesday, awarding 13 gold medals. The Paralympic version of the sport is open to athletes with visual impairments.

Written by Maggie Lee in Beijing

ATR Coverage of the Beijing Paralympics is Proudly Presented by Rio 2016.

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