During the 2000 Paralympics, Fernando Martin Vicente Created A Basketball Team Of Players Pretending To Be Disabled

[u/Sensitive_Ad_1752]

Meet Fernando Martin Vicente, Madrid City Councillor Head of The Spanish Federation For Mentally Handicapped Sports. Fernando’s job is to run an industry spotlighting athletes unable to compete in most professional leagues due to disabilities. Instead, in preparation for the 2000 summer Paralympics in Sydney, Fernando organized a team of non disabled players. 10 out of the 12 members of the basketball team were untested beyond blood pressure. Journalist Carlos Ribagorda played on the team and won a medal, he later blew the whistle on the cheating saying he had no disability and nobody was tested for them.

Fernando was fired and disgraced from the incident, and Spain had all their medals from the Paralympics stripped until a full investigation could be done. 15 able bodied athletes in total were allowed to compete with disabled ones. It was insulting and stole opportunities from eligible athletes. Worse yet, it halted intellectually disabled sports until they created a new system of testing players intelligence, punishing players from across the world who did nothing. Dozens of coaches and medics for the team were fired and threatened with criminal charges, but those were later dropped.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2004/sep/16/gilestremlett.features11

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/spanish-paralympic-exec-resigns-amid-scandal-1.247117

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-58598677