Wheelchairs, Perjury and the London Marathon

by Tim Marshall

  And then, as I reached the finishing line, there was Alan Robinson, winner of the first two Great North Runs – what was he doing here, surely I wasn’t 4th, when had he come past? He told me not to worry, he hadn’t completed the race, but had been swept up – when and where I never discovered – and transported to the finish. Of William Charlton there was no sign, but along with Alan and the 17 confirmed finishers he presumably made the 19th starter.

  Truth Will Out

  Sitting on the terrace outside County Hall, I was thinking of trying to find Ivor, who had driven the van from Greenwich to Waterloo. But Illtyd Harrington turned up. “Hello, Tim,” he said, “I want you to come and meet some people.” As we left the terrace he commiserated with me at finishing only third, but said that there had been a presentation to Gordon by Ken (Livingstone) – I forgot to enquire as to whether Denise, who had won the women’s race, was similarly honoured. But what came next was an astonishing revelation about what had happened in the weeks between my letter to the politicians and Philip Lewis’ telephone call.

  The story unfolded as we entered what seemed like the dungeons of County Hall. What comes next is my memory of the conversation. It is reported as such, and though it can’t be a strictly verbatim record of what he said, it is as close to the truth as I can remember; and the gist of it is absolutely and completely true.

  “I expect you’re wondering how all this came about,” he said. I had fondly imagined that all the pressure I been putting on had eventually resulted in Brasher and Disley conceding, and said as much; but no, they had resisted all the pressure resulting from my letters to past and present ministers for sport, and ditto disability. “Oh no,” he said, “there was lots more water under the bridge yet. You know The Sunday Times went to talk to Brasher and Disley?” “Well, Disley, actually, Chris Brasher was in Rome. That resulted in the article in the paper in March.”

  “Yes, That’s right. But they were so astonished at Disley’s vitriolic response to their approach that they thought there must be something more to dig into. You know what the Sunday papers are like.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, they went to the IAAF in Richmond and asked them what was their position regarding the participation of wheelchairs in road races. The IAAF said it was nothing to do with them, as they weren’t the governing body for wheelchair racing. ‘Of course,’ they continued, ‘you can’t have the wheelchairs competing directly against the runners, as far as we are concerned that would be illegal, and we would de-recognise the running race and any results that came from it.’ The Sunday Times persisted. ‘But if the wheelchair race were run in parallel with the running race, that would be OK would it, not a problem?’ ‘Not for us it wouldn’t be. Of course, there might be issues of safety, but that’s a matter for the race organisers, not for us.’”

  (I never found out exactly what The Sunday Times managed to extract from the IAAF over its position on wheelchairs and road racing, but in the light of what followed it seems unlikely to have been just a verbal statement of their position. I can only imagine that it was a simple written statement clarifying the issues set out above: that they were not in any sense a governing body for wheelchair racing; that wheelchairs could not be described as racing against runners in a road race (and that to do so would invalidate any and all running results from such a race); but that there were no laws or IAAF rules or regulations forbidding the staging of a wheelchair race being run in parallel with a foot-race; and that organisers may need to pay particular attention to safety issues should they decide to run such a parallel event.)

  “What happened next,” Illtyd continued, “is that The Sunday Times came to us, armed with this information from the IAAF. As you can imagine, we found this very interesting indeed – we were sympathetic to your cause almost right from the start, but had been completely stymied by the ‘against international regulations’ argument. So we took what the paper had just told us – given to us – and asked Brasher and Disley to come and see us.”

  (I don’t know whether this meeting was one of the routine meetings which were no doubt a regular feature of the run-up to the whole event, or whether it was a special, one-off meeting; nor do I know exactly when it took place, though it must have been within a very few days before, or even the same day as, Philip Lewis’s phone call to me. At any event, there was a meeting, at which the GLC, in the shape of Harrington and Banks, re-introduced the subject of a wheelchair section.) “‘Not this one again’ Brasher and Disley said. ‘We’ve already explained that it’s against international regulations; why can’t you accept this?’

  “‘Are you sure of that?’”

  “‘Absolutely.’”

  “‘Well, this is what your own international governing body says.’”

  “At this point we showed them the statement that the IAAF had given to The Sunday Times, and which they had passed on to us. As you can imagine, they (Brasher and Disley) weren’t very happy; but for them, things were about to get worse. We’d prepared very carefully for this meeting – we are politicians, you know.”

  We had reached a lift, but before calling it he carried on with the story.

  “So we pressed home the point. ‘You told us it was against international regulations to have wheelchairs and runners taking part in the same event. For months, you have peddled this line to us, and we believed you. Now, it appears that there are no such regulations forbidding the parallel running of such an event, and your own international governing body says so.’ A pause. ‘What you told us wasn’t true.’” [Ouch!] Brasher and Disley must have been feeling pretty uncomfortable by now, but the next move made things a lot worse for them.

  “‘What else have you told us that isn’t true?’”

  [What a devastating question – what could anyone have said in response? The coup de grace followed.]

  “‘We think the marathon has been an excellent development for London, for the people who live here, in fact for the whole country. We want to enhance the event with the inclusion of a wheelchair section. We all know that, under IAAF laws, and despite what you told us, this is not forbidden. If you persist in refusing to allow a wheelchair section in this year’s race, we may have to reconsider our application to the police to have the roads closed for the event’.”

  In chess, this is known as zug-zwang (literally, “train crash”). It’s your move, you have to move a piece, move any piece somewhere; but anything you do will, in your own eyes, make things worse than they already are. It was this meeting, and Brasher and Disley’s response to the GLC, that resulted in Philip Lewis’ phone call to me on that Tuesday evening.

  The room upstairs was full of the great and the good, all seemingly involved with the marathon specifically or athletics and sport in general. Illtyd introduced me to Roger Bannister, but our conversation was somewhat desultory before he was taken away by someone else. After about half an hour I left, and found Ivor outside, waiting patiently for me to turn up. He was beaming, thought the whole thing was marvellous, the little man had prevailed over the big man, and all was well with the world. I didn’t even think to ask him into a café for a drink before taking the keys and driving back to Birmingham.

  The question remained: why were Brasher and Disley so deeply opposed to the existence of a wheelchair section in the first place? I never found out, so what follows is inevitably speculation. Firstly, and probably most important, London was modelled on the New York Marathon organised by Fred le Bow, who banned wheelchairs. Why, I don’t know, but it’s easy to imagine that he advised against the inclusion of a wheelchair section for whatever reasons he had (a nuisance, too much trouble, dangerous to runners, wheels are not the same as legs, against international regulations …). Secondly, London was, and is, a foot-race; people on wheels are different, and therefore not eligible to take part. This view is at least consistent with Disley’s view of how the public would view matters “… if a wheelchair crossed the line first, people would think that he’d won.” Pers
onally, I would credit the watching public with more sense than that.

  One of the consequences of the “foot-race” argument is, of course, that wheelchairs cannot take part in “The London Marathon”, and therefore, even if they trundle along the same course as the runners at roughly the same time, they will not be eligible to receive a London Marathon medal, which is for runners only. To describe this attitude as mean-spirited would be overly generous to Brasher, who, fortunately, changed his mind the following year. Lastly, comes the “against international regulations” argument, which is valid only if organisers think that runners and wheelchairs are competing directly against each other; this is simply a restatement of the earlier position, and I would guess that most (all?) don’t think that at all.

  Aftermath

  As may be imagined, many things flowed from the events described above. In the week following the race, Jenny sent me a long letter, the first page of which I have lost, but the second page reads, tantalisingly, as follows:

  “… could also be helpful in preventing a resurrection of the political saga revolving around Alyn Claremont-Davies. I feel this is going to be the first question he and his M.P. ask when they hear about next year’s Marathon. If we’re freed of this stupidity we will all have more time to concentrate on the important aspects of safety in the race. No answer expected but I thought it would be helpful for you to have these points to think on before our next meeting. I enclose a copy of Alyn Claremont-Davies’s letter and my reply.”

  This looked ominous. What was the issue that might occasion him bringing in his M.P.? The name was familiar from the newspaper articles, but he hadn’t been at the April 7th meeting in County Hall, and I hadn’t been introduced to him at the start, so who was he, and what was he upset about? The letter didn’t really clarify anything at all. Here it is:

  “Dear Jenny

  I was rather disappointed after Sunday’s marathon event about a couple of points

  I was told by you that the medals that the wheelchair entrants received on finishing would be the same as those received by ‘able-bodied’ competitors. My medal, for one, was different to those given to ‘able-bodied’ people which rather spoiled the feeling of the day for me. My medal did not include any people, running, walking, or in wheelchairs on Tower Bridge so I feel that it is only a souvenir of London and not of the London wheelchair marathon.

  I and many other, unrelated, people feel that my efforts and publicity to get wheelchairs accepted in THE London marathon has gone totally unrecognised by the BSAD and the commentator on BBC television.

  As the GLC were totally behind having wheelchairs participating in THE London marathon I cannot understand why you agreed with Mr Brasher to have a separate event, that could easily have been part of the london marathon, was decided on. With the GLC being behind me this year wheelchairs could have participated in THE London marathon this year and not at some time in the future or at a never never date.

  I thought that out of courtesy I would have been told about the meetings that were being arranged between you and Mr Brasher, or invited to the meetings even if you decided to take someone else to speak.

  I am sorry if I sound rather bitter about the course of events but I feel that without my effort wheelchairs would not have run on Sunday at all and if BSAD had been a little more organised and working for disabled people wheelchairs would have been in THE LONDON MARATHON 1983 and not a second class race.

  Yours sincerely

  Alyn Claremont-Davies”

  I found most of this letter baffling: what did he mean by THE London Marathon? In principle, there are three ways of starting a wheelchair section: at the front, with or without a headstart; at the back, with a defined lag after the start, hopefully as soon as possible after the last runners have started; or scattered throughout the assembled runners at the start, in accordance with their estimated finishing times, as had originally been proposed for the Great North Run. Which of these arrangements did he think would have constituted THE London marathon? It was as clear as mud. And whilst his comment about the medals was fully justified, he evidently knew nothing of the knife-edge we had reached on April 7th. As for the comments about getting greater coverage of the wheelchair race from the BBC, who wouldn’t have wanted greater coverage?

  He evidently had some standing in London regarding disability sport, for he had been quoted in one of the newspaper articles, and he also referred to his meeting(s?) with the GLC. But I had met the GLC several times and his name had never been mentioned. (Two things happened for 1984: it was accepted by Brasher and Disley that the wheelchair finishers would receive a full, London Marathon medal. What would have happened if news of the ban in 1983 had received wide public attention is a matter of speculation, though I don’t think Brasher and Disley would have come out of it smelling of roses. And, recognising the injustice of the 1983 decision, the GLC put on a reception in 1984 at which the 1983 finishers were finally awarded full 1983 medals.)

  Jenny’s reply – stressing the short time there had been to organise the wheelchair section, and the difficulties which had had to be circumvented – must have acted as a safety valve, for to the best of my knowledge there was no further approach from A C-D, nor his MP.

  Comments from other participants were rather more enthusiastic. From Graham Young, for example:

  “Dear Jenny,

  Many thanks for the results, and thank you for putting in all the hard work at the last minute to make this event possible on the day. The organisation was first class and I only see one problem, that must be worked out before 1984. As you know from the beginning, we would have a problem with the start because of starting from the back.

  Problems that this caused were:-

  More danger to the runners on foot because of the need to pass on route

  Wheelchairs covering a larger distance because of going round runners

  Slowing down wheelchair times

  I suggest the wheelchairs start from the front 15 minutes before the main start. This will allow the wheelchairs to clear the fastest section before the first runners come by. It is also much easier for runners to pass a single wheelchair on route rather than the other way round.

  Looking at the times that were made by the wheelchairs I can see the leading wheelchairs finishing in 1984 in 2 hours 30 minutes allowing for an open road, better wheelchairs, fitter competitors, and better understanding of the race. With this in mind very few runners will be meeting the wheelchairs at all.

  I hope this has been of some help, and I am looking forward to another great marathon in London in 1984.

  Best wishes

  Graham Young

  P.S. The public reaction has been fantastic. My phone never stopped for two days and people have also written letters to myself and Olive. I think this speaks for itself.”

  There were letters, too, from helpers – unofficial stewards whom Jenny had persuaded into standing by at places on the course potentially difficult for wheelchairs: the Cutty Sark, St Katharine’s Dock (a narrow footbridge) and the Tower of London. None of them reported needing to assist any of the chairs, though the steward at the dock reported a slight slowing down of the wheelchairs at the entrance to the Dutch Bridge as runners and wheelchairs filtered together, rather like traffic merging where two roads join.

  This was all very gratifying, but the crunch would come when Brasher and Disley turned up with comments from the runners. Another letter from Jenny at the end of the month brought news of contact from Alison Turnbull, the deputy editor of “Running” magazine, who wanted a results list – all the timing of the wheelchair race had had to be done by BSAD stewards quite independently of the timing of the main race, from which there was no support for wheelchair timing at all, and who said that she was pursuing rumours about two alleged incidents involving a wheelchair and runners. Between them they agreed that nothing would go into print until facts about the incidents were clearly established.

  I have no further information
about this line of enquiry, but the accident issue was brought fully into the open at a meeting on June 1st between Brasher and Disley on the one hand and a contingent from BSAD on the other, which included Jenny and Graham Young (writer of the sensible letter above) and the new BSAD chairman, Colin Bance (who had been at the April 7th meeting in County Hall and the subsequent press conference at the Waldorf Hotel, the first time I had met him). Brasher read out about 14 letters from runners, three of which reported injuries. Potentially this was very serious, though entirely attributable to the rear-end start. Largely these were just bumps and bruises, and though there was one who had Achilles tendon damage, it responded to treatment. The most disturbing incident occurred on the Isle of Dogs, where a wheelchair competitor ignored a marshal who told him to stay on one side of the road as traffic flowed normally on the other. He knocked the marshal over and collided with a lamp post. I don’t know if we ever found out who the individual was – had we done so he would have been barred from the race in future.

  The other matter which occasioned many complaints was, predictably, the bells, hooters and whistles which the wheelchairs had used to warn runners of their approach, entirely the consequence of the rear-end start. Clearly, the accidents and the audible warnings could be avoided completely by a headstart. Interestingly, at the meeting, Brasher and Disley insisted on a code of conduct for wheelchair participants in future – thus acceding to the idea that there would indeed be a wheelchair section next year – and seemed to have accepted the idea of a front-end start as the way to organise things. In practice, the front-end start almost entirely obviated the need for a code of practice at all, but here it is. Some of these points were almost certainly adopted directly from the rules laid down by Stoke Mandeville for racing wheelchairs used in the various spinal injury games: