I’ve got a pretty good CV when it comes to long distance events. Three Great South Runs, a marathon earlier this year and a 24-hour endurance event in April in which I covered 70 miles. So why has the Brighton Marathon told me that I need a chaperone if I want to take part? Because I’m a wheelchair user. Yes, I thought it was 2016 too.
It’s hard sometimes to explain everything a disabled person comes up against in everyday life without sounding like a tantrum-throwing two-year-old, but each day I accept being patronised, I accept people assuming that I can’t manage, I accept people rushing over to assist. I put up with these never-ending attacks on my independence with as much grace as I can muster because, after all, people are just trying to help. There isn’t enough kindness in the world for me to go around refusing it.
But I am a gutsy, determined, never-say-die son-of-a-gun, and as much as I will accept kindness, I refuse to let anyone tell me what I am and am not capable of. So on looking into entering the Brighton Marathon and seeing in the FAQs under “Can I take part with a wheelchair?” the phrasing, “If you have a standard wheelchair … this will be allowed … provided another participant is pushing the chair …” I’ll be honest with you: I was furious.
Because from the day I was born without tibia bones, which resulted in both my legs being amputated a few months later, I have proved people wrong time and time again.
So imagine how angry I was to be told I couldn’t compete in a sporting event? That I’m not a valid participant; that I can take part, but, umm, not really … just be quiet now and go away, will you? I cannot and I will not accept that. I am too old and too proud.
Brighton is the only such major marathon in the UK to insist upon the infantilisation of disabled athletes, because parts of the course are not accessible and “could pose significant problems should they run into difficulty”. Yes, they actually sent me a direct message on Twitter with that phrasing. Hilarious? I nearly fell out of my chair.
If the course could pose significant problems, change the course! Not just for me, I know I’m not that important, but for everyone who ever wanted to do something and were told they couldn’t because someone else didn’t believe they were able to. Why not find out if a wheelchair athlete can complete your course, instead of assuming they can’t. Stop seeing the “dis” and start seeing the “ability”.
I am a guy who happens to have no legs but who pushes myself (lol, as the young folk say) as hard as I can in order to prove, over and over again, that there is nothing others can do that I cannot. My message is simple: your limitations are not my limitations.
I’ve received lots of support on social media, along with friends emailing the Brighton Marathon in protest. So much so that on the same day they insisted I must be pushed around the course, the organisers amended the wording on their website to say people like me are “able to take part but on the agreement that the wheelchair user is accompanied by a runner throughout the 26.2 miles. The accompanying runner does not have to push the wheelchair during the race but must participate alongside them throughout”.
What this non-concession means is that I must still be babysat, albeit with my babysitter allowed to back off a few inches. Sorry, but that still isn’t good enough. If I can’t do this alone, how can I ever prove that I am able to do it alone?
The point is this: we’re not the same, you and I. And nor are all disabled athletes the same. Some with less mobility than me might quite enjoy being pushed round the course. Equally, some might like someone to chat to along the route and to be there as a fail-safe should they, ahem, run into difficulty. But not me. I’ll do it my way. It is my victory or my defeat. No one gets to tell me what I achieve; no one gets to tell me what I fail at.
This is my story of refusing to accept anyone else choosing my limitations. Because you don’t have to be able to stand up in order to stand up for yourself.
