Among the athletes who are most unhappy are Britons' Aled Davies (pictured top) and Hannah Cockroft, as well as Ireland's multiple Paralympic gold medallists Jason Smyth and Michael McKillop, who are all unable to defend titles they won at London 2012.

While the new Paralympic programme for Rio will have seven more events than at London 2012 - rising from 170 to 177 - some athletes have been left frustrated and angry by the omission of events that they competed in at last year's Games.

Multiple world champion and world record holder McKillop, who would have been chasing a third successive T37 800 metres crown in Rio, was disappointed to hear that the event has been dropped for 2016.

"I'm really sad and very disappointed as I wanted to go to Rio and defend both my titles," said the 23-year-old, who also won the 1500m at London 2012. 

"It doesn't make sense to me.

"I want to win as many medals as possible and the news won't stop me from training hard and trying to win the 1500m."

McKillop's teammate Smyth would have been chasing a third consecutive Paralympic double, but the T13 200m has been dropped leaving the world record holder with only the 100m title to defend.

"Sometimes things happen that you just don't understand why," he said on Twitter.


Warner, who is also chairman of UK Athletics explained that the programme changes aim to simplify the classification and scoring system, particularly in the field events and that with the introduction of 15 more events for women than there was at London 2012 the IPC is trying to provide a more equal balance in terms of male and female competitions.

"I am acutely conscious of the fact that we were never going to be able to please all of the people and we have come up with something that I believe is fair, balanced and increases the number of female opportunities which is critical, and doing away with the use of the points scoring system, which takes the whole programme forward," he told insidethegames.

"We've gone through an extremely vigorous process over the last two years, taking input from nations all around the world.

"It was clear to us from the outset that if we were to do away with the use of the Raza points system and to move towards single class competition which was always our objective then we couldn't keep everybody happy.

"That was always going to be the case and I know there will be some disappointed British athletes and I know there will be a number of disappointed athletes from around the world, that was always going to happen.

"However, we have, I believe come up with a valid programme that will give opportunities for throwers and all other types of athletes but particularly throwers, across the different disability classes."

Warner highlighted the difficulty in creating a programme that caters for athletes with such a broad range of abilities and classifications and to fit it all in across the time-slot of Games competition, adding that in the past, Paralympic athletics was extremely difficult to organise.


"There was a time if you go back to the Eighties where there were hundreds of events in Paralympic athletics and it was almost impossible to manage and now we have got that down to a manageable number at 170-plus," he said.

"We have got a few more, as the IPC have granted us a few more medal opportunities which gives us a bit of flexibility to put some more marathon events in but there is no way you could please all of the people all of the time.

"We have had to look at a balance across classes and across event disciplines and come up with a programme that will work, so you can basically get it all into nine days of athletics.

"The IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) has a set programme of 47 gold medal opportunities which is very, very infrequently tweaked and has been largely established for a long period of time.

"We would like to get to the point where that is the case with Paralympic athletics but until for example we have 50/50 gender balance we won't have got there.

"You have got to look at equality across gender and across impairment and you have got to find a fair spread of events."

The new programme for Rio was developed following an analysis by IPC Athletics of the number of athletes, regions and countries participating in each event, and each National Paralympic Committee (NPC) was then asked to complete a survey.

In all 28 NPCs returned completed surveys, and during the 2012 Games NPCs provided feedback on two draft versions of the programme before a final draft was presented at last December's IPC Athletics Sport Forum in Frankfurt.


Warner claimed that following the lengthy consultation process, the decision was taken to announce the changes now, three years before Rio 2016, to allow athletes, coaches and National Federations time to adjust to the new programme.

Asked whether he understood the frustrations of athletes like Davies and McKillop who will be denied the opportunity to defend Paralympic titles, Warner said: "Yes, I completely understand their viewpoint but the [Paralympic] Movement has to look forwards and the programme is an evolving programme.

"While athletes may have fewer events that they can compete in, what they will find is that the events that they have got in Rio will only be for their own single class, and that to our mind is fairer, easier to understand and more spectator friendly.

"Clearly, I have got sympathy with the athletes concerned but it's important that we need to continue to move towards a programme that can then ultimately ensue for many years and this is a big step in that direction."

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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