Page 20 - Peter Farrelly Issue

disability. I think once they understand that, that we’re athletes first, I think we’ll see the biggest change in that.
Kaplan: In the documentary, like you said, your burden of proof is placed on your camp to prove that you don’t have an advantage with your blades. Can you talk more about the process behind the scientific testing?
Leeper: Yeah! It’s very interesting, because it’s called the Max Allowable Standing Height, the MASH rule. That means that’s the tallest I possibly could be to run in the Olympics and Paralympic Games. They take different points of my body, even though my wingspan is about 6'1", that’s what dictated how tall I should be, roughly about 6'2" if I were to run on my toes. But they took dif- ferent points of my body from my sitting height, my fibu- la, all these things, but then they implemented it into a formula that they created, and in that formula, the test population only included, if I’m not mistaken, 50 white Australian men and then tested against 15 Japanese Asian men. I wasn’t a demographic. They’re using science against me that does not represent me. I think that’s dan- gerous when you’re doing something like that. We see this in the healthcare industry all the time. When you base it in science that doesn’t have representation, when you implement me as a Black man to this test population of white Australian men and Japanese Asian men, the num- bers will be off a little bit. It’s not going to dictate how I might have a short torso and maybe longer limbs. That’s why when I started at 6'2", I had to drop down to 5'8", and I fought it for so long because that was something that I truly don’t believe in. I don’t feel like I would be 5'8" in my tippy-toes in my sprinting height. I feel like I would be taller given the limbs that I do have.
But these are the rules that are set in place for me right now. And I’m trying to figure out how to become the fastest I possibly can be at this height.
Kaplan: Is it true that the team you’re working with found that you had more disadvantages than benefits?
Leeper: That was the interesting part. Working with Dr. Grabowski in the Boulder, Colorado, test, once they dove into the research and realized all different parts of the 400 meter race that I run, from block starts to curve running to running back into the curve. They were like, “Blake actually has a disadvantage against able-bodied runners. He starts off slower because he has to. He’s starting off in the curve.” So, if you really look at it, he’s at a disadvantage more than an advantage, but peo- ple only see the blades. They only see when I’m win- ning. They see my strategy and they say it’s the blades because he becomes faster at the end. That’s not true. I’m not faster at the end, I’m just strategically running a different race than everybody else because I have to.
Kaplan: What advice do you give to other disabled ath- letes who are coming up?
my running legs, for the population of people they stud- ied to determine my height didn’t represent me. There were no Black men in the study at all. I thought that was unfair. I had to drop my height by six inches. They said I had an unfair advantage because I was too tall. As I was watching the Tokyo Olympics, I’m watching guys who were running in the Olympics who I was beating leading up to the Olympics. Physically I had raced them and beat them. I had to watch them go on to the Olympic stage. I just knew deep down that if I quit now, and I probably have every right to quit, then they win. So, I cannot quit. I’ve got to keep fighting. I’ve got to keep pushing through.
So, in a weird way, it was motivation for me to figure out whatever it is. You say I’m too tall? OK, let’s drop the legs six inches. You don’t want my story to get out there into the world, I’ll tell my story in a different way. I’ll shed my light on a different platform. That’s what I’ve been doing, focusing on, to continue that fight, that battle to prove to the world that I’m not done yet.
Kaplan: Do you believe that the IAAF (World Athletics federation) has a bias against disabled athletes?
Leeper: Honestly, I do. Yes. I think that’s the view on disabled individuals. If you look back at my court case– It’s talked about it a little bit in the documentary. – In fact, the burden of proof was on the disabled athlete at the beginning of my court case. In any other situation where you’re going up against a court of sport with the IAAF the burden of proof is on the federation. Only with disabled athletes, the burden of proof is on me. I think that’s something that really needs to be looked at and changed. We need to be seen as human, not “dis- abled athletes,” but athletes that just so happen to have a
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