PARIS: The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said yesterday that it would take no action against Dutch hand-cyclist Monique van der Vorst for misrepresenting her impairment.
Van der Vorst, now 28, used a wheelchair for nearly 13 years after her left leg was paralysed and her right knee stopped working properly.
She won silver in the hand-cycling time-trial and road race at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing but, two years later, recovered the use of her legs following a road accident.
The IPC began an investigation following reports of her recovery to determine whether she had intentionally misrepresented her impairment during her career.
In a statement, IPC medical and scientific director Peter Van de Vliet said they spent more than 12 months gathering evidence about the case. Van der Vorst herself had provided a “comprehensive and clear picture of her story”, he added.
“Over the course of her Paralympic career, Monique presented for classification on several occasions with supportive medical evidence of muscular dystrophy and pain-related clinical manifestation,” he said on paralympic.org.
“The IPC accepts therefore that Monique did not deliberately misrepresent her impairment when subject to classification evaluation on a number of occasions during her para-cycling career.”AFP
