INAS-FID: Consultations Shall Focus on Re-Assessment and Eligibility System

At its last meeting in Salt Lake City (25 - 26 August), the IPC Management Committee decided that the IPC's future consultations with INAS-FID would focus primarily on two issues:

• Internal report on the re-assessment of the Sydney athletes
• Development and implementation of a new eligibility verification system

The IPC Management Committee stated that sufficient clarification on all three issues is a prerequisite for allowing intellectually disabled athletes to participate in IPC sanctioned competitions.

In order to move forward to solve the existing problems, it is necessary to keep separate two issues: re-evaluation of athletes' eligibility at the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games on the one hand; and the creation of a new eligibility verification system on the other hand.

It is vital for the IPC that all 244 intellectually disabled athletes who participate in the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games are re-assessed. Until today, the IPC has been informed only of 170 completed re-assessments. INAS-FID has committed to submit a full report to the IPC by 30 September.

The Management Committee felt the necessity to incorporate in the IPC rules, new eligibility criteria and rules on how to assess the athletes. Such measures would help prevent the participation of athletes who are not eligible to compete in events for intellectually disabled athletes.

In addition, the Management Committee decided that a motion would be submitted to the General Assembly to ratify the suspension, which the Executive Committee passed in March and reconfirmed in April 2001.

It was noted that the IPC constitution - article V.5 - states that no decision of the General Assembly with regards to lifting a suspension will affect the validity of the suspension prior to its decision. Consequently, it was confirmed that lifting a suspension cannot retroactively affect the validity of the suspension at the time of competition entry deadlines or deadlines for finalizing a competition program. Therefore, the participation of ID-athletes at the Paralympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City will by no means be possible, as the deadline for finalizing the event program has already passed.