ParalympicsGB has been monitoring the protest around the women’s T54 5000m race to ensure the interests of the British athlete involved are protected.
For the past 24 hours, ParalympicsGB has been actively seeking assurances that proper procedures and processes were followed by the international governing bodies. At this point, while it appears the established appeal and protest procedures have been followed, not all of the supporting documentation has been received.
The British team is particularly disappointed that the medal ceremony was held prior to the resolution of the protest.
“It’s unacceptable that Shelly was presented with a silver medal when the result of the race was not yet official. Following this incident we strongly feel that communications between the personnel handling protests and those running the medal ceremonies need to be improved and we hope that BOCOG and the IPC will take steps to ensure that this situation does not occur again,” said ParalympicsGB Chef de Mission Phil Lane.
“ParalympicsGB is now turning its attention to supporting Shelly Woods as she focuses, not only on re-running the 5000m race, but also her other important events.”
