The rock stars of the Paralympics

Brendan O’Brien
London

When Ryley Batt was born in Port Macquarie in New South Wales 23 years ago he had no legs and needed surgery to separate his webbed fingers but you will still hear people in London this week argue that he is not disabled enough to play wheelchair rugby.

That may sound like an oxymoron but the Paralympic Games is nothing if not complicated and the Australian’s case is one of the more high-profile examples of the endless debates over who should and who should not be eligible to play various sports or compete in various classes.

Wheelchair rugby was conceived in Canada in 1977 for people who had suffered spinal injuries but the game’s custodians opened their doors to other wheelchair-bound players in the years that followed and the effect has been nothing short of revolutionary.

Because his torso is not impaired, Batt can do things with a wheelchair that you wouldn’t believe and, more importantly, most of his colleagues couldn’t even contemplate. In yesterday’s pool game against Sweden, he shimmied – yep, you read that right, shimmied – past opponents.

Not just once but repeatedly.

After more than a week of watching one-legged high-jumpers and armless swimmers, it says something about what Batt was doing with his chair yesterday that he was able to elicit gasps of astonishment time and again from journalists who thought they had seen it all.

He has, quite simply, taken wheelchair rugby to a new level and left everyone else stranded on a plateau far below. In a sport that used to be known as Murderball, he is a beauty and a beast all in one because his dexterity is only one of his many weapons.

Power, speed, aggression, leadership, attack, defence – you name it, he can do it. At one point yesterday, he was hemmed in to a corner by three Swedes but swivelled one way then another and another before finding open road and crossing the line for a goal.

Here was a score to match Carlos Alberto’s goal for Brazil in the 1970 World Cup final or Gareth Edwards’ for the Barbarians against the All Blacks three years later but with just the one man playing the various roles of creator and executioner.

On Wednesday, he was accountable for 37 of Australia’s 64 in the opening win over Canada. Against Sweden, he managed half of their 60 and an unknown number of assists besides. No-one slammed into opponents, tumbled to the floor or needed wheels replaced more than him.

They like to fill the gaps in between scores and timeouts with snippets of high-voltage music at these events but imagine a succession of dustbin lids being slammed together and you have the soundtrack to what is a full-on contact sport and Batt is almost always the one making the din.

And there is the problem.

Wheelchair rugby operates a classification system which rates players based on the level of their disability. Those most-abled, like Batt, are 3.5s. The least able-bodied carry a mark of 0.5 and no team of four’s points can add up to more than eight at any time on court.

The argument is that Batt is simply too good: a perfect storm of a player and one who will drag Australia to the top of the podium all by himself this week but, for now, the sport’s authorities have already done all they can to stem his outlandish influence.

“I got classified up before so I lost all my court time and had to rebuild as a whole player and try to play to a new class, probably the hardest thing in my sport. A 3.5 classification is the most abled on the court so my job is to be the main ball carrier and the hitter and the main man out there.

“I’m taking up almost half the eight points on court so that’s my job but you have to have a great team behind you. I’ve adapted really well to the high classification and since 2007 I’ve been taking out most of the MVP trophies which has been a great accomplishment.”

Wheelchair rugby players like to describe themselves as the rock stars of the Paralympics and if that is true then Ryley Batt is the larger-than-life leader of the band as, with his tattoes and ear-rings, he plays the part in every way imaginable.

In 2008, he won a silver medal at the Beijing Games and blamed his own lack of fitness for the failure to bring home the gold. The last four years have been spent rectifying that and it is impossible to see how anyone will stop him now.

Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/0zcICqxX38Q/post.aspx

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