The 23-year-old (pictured above and below) from Lawrence in Kansas was being tipped to win nine golds at London 2012 after winning eight gold medals and a silver at the World Championships in Eindhoven in 2010 in the S6 and S7 class, setting nine world records in the process.

After being moved into the S8 category for less severely disabled athletes, she can now only compete for seven medals and is facing a much more difficult task.

"It was a huge shock," Weggemann said.

"As an athlete it was not only a shock but it left me very frustrated with the system.

"I lost faith in it a bit."

Weggemann lost the use of her legs after receiving a series of epidurals to treat shingles shortly before her 19th birthday.

She was inspired to become a Paralympic athlete after watching the US swimming trials ahead of Beijing 2008.

However, she was left stunned when the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) moved her into a new class after rejecting an appeal made against the reclassification.


"I was always borderline of the S6 and the S7 category, so for me to be moved up to an S8 was very hard," she said.

"It's not something I expected.

"It changes my events, it changes a lot of things and just like every other athlete here, I've spent the last four years training for this moment.

"To come in and three days before competition have to go through a classification, and less than 24 hours before I was originally supposed to compete find out that my appeal was denied, is very disheartening.

"I'm a T10 complete paraplegic, I have no feeling or movement from my belly button down and I'm competing against people who are bi-lateral double amputees below the knee, who have, from below the knee up, full function.

"It's like competing against seven athletes who are doping, in a sense, when you're at that big of a disadvantage.

"It's hard to see that the system is fair when you take an athlete that's borderline of the 6/7 category and turn them into an S8."

Weggemann is not alone in being reclassified.


Compatriots Justin Zook moved from S9 to S10 and Victoria Arlen (pictured above), a major rival to Ellie Simmonds, was initially ruled ineligible for the S6 class before her appeal was upheld.

"Why can't we in the Paralympic world have athletes like Michael Phelps, who go and win eight gold medals?" Weggemann told the BBC World Service.

"I feel that the minute you get to that point, your classification gets questioned and the minute we get to the point of being able to be that dominant in our sport, they [the IPC] come in and say 'maybe you're in the wrong classification', versus just accepting that athletes with disabilities can be that good at what they do."

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