MAY 6 - MENCAP today called on full funding to be restored to athletes with learning disabilities to ensure they are ready if they allowed to compete in the 2012 Paralympics.

 

A day after insidethegames exclusively revealed that the British Paralympic Association were strongly lobbying for the inclusion of the category in 2012 following the ban imposed after the 2000 Sydney Paralympics, the UK's leading learning disability charity said it feared that Britain's athletes would not be ready in time.

 

Mencap is now calling on the Department of Culture, Media and Sport to work with the governing bodies of sport to make funding available immediately.

 

Mencap’s chief executive, Dame Jo Williams, said: “We strongly urge sporting bodies to find a solution, because without immediate funding these talented athletes will not be physically ready to compete in London 2012.”

 

Ben Procter, a world record-breaking swimmer, knows the effect of the cuts all too well.

 

His grandmother Dilys said: “Since Ben’s funding was cut we have spent over £5,000 a year supporting him to take part in his sport.

 

"I fear that many athletes will drop out of sport altogether and so will Ben if 2012 is not a possibility.”

 

The category was dropped aftrer controversy at the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney when Spain were stripped of their basketball gold medals shortly after the Games closed when Carlos Ribagorda, a member of the victorious team and an undercover journalist, revealed to the Spanish business magazine Capital that most of his colleagues had not undergone medical tests to ensure that they had a disability.

 

The IPC investigated the claims and found that required mental tests, which should show that competitors have an IQ no more than 70, were not conducted by the Spanish Paralympic Committee (CPE).

 

The IPC announced in 2003 that, due to serious difficulties in determining the eligibility of athletes, it was suspending all official sporting activities involving an intellectual disability and the category was dropped from the 2004 Athens Paralympics.

 

There is a growing lobby, however, for it to restored to the Paralympics and the IPC have said they will study the matter after the Beijing Games.