North Shore high school student launches petition to bring para athletes back to track event

A West Vancouver Grade 9 student is calling out B.C.’s track and field officials for excluding para athletes from an upcoming provincial championship.

Rachael Watkins says she recently learned the B.C. High School Track and Field Association (BCTFA) has eliminated the para athlete division at next week’s event, while suggesting there’s no need to host competitions for those students during the qualifying zone championships.

That means Watkins’ teammate and friend Ges Bushe, a Grade 11 student who previously qualified for the championship, won’t be running alongside her.

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“It’s heartbreaking,” she said. “Ges has worked so hard, even harder than us because of his physical disability. He put all this effort in and he won’t see his end goal.”

Bushe, who requires an assistive device in order to speak, said running is “fun” and feels “frustrated” he can’t compete.

“I want more kids like me to run,” he said.

The announcement was never made public, Watkins said, saying she heard about the news through Bushe’s family.

Watkins has started a petition calling for the para athlete events to be reinstated. It quickly collected hundreds of signatures from classmates and teammates who were “confused and angry” about the move, she said.

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“It doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “They did it because of the number of people participating, but they still shouldn’t have done it.”

Para athletes are defined as athletes with physical disabilities, and are considered a separate group from special Olympic athletes who are able-bodied but have intellectual disabilities.

Both groups were combined into a single division of B.C last year, after para athletes were introduced in 2015.

Bushe’s mother Carmen Farrell said participation hasn’t grown in the way she and other families have hoped, but added including these athletes is more important.

“I have no interest seeing my child earning a bronze medal in a field of three. To me, that doesn’t have any dignity,” she said. “But on other side, the BCTFA has done very little to nothing to promote the opportunity and development for para athletes.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I have no interest seeing my child earning a bronze medal in a field of three. To me, that doesn't have any dignity," she said. "But on other side, the BCTFA has done very little to nothing to promote the opportunity and development for para athletes."

Farrell — who also serves as executive director for the Social Emotional Empathy Development Society that promotes the inclusion of children with special needs — said she heard the move was due to those participation concerns, but questioned why it had to affect para athletes.

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“If Rachael’s division, the girls’ division, had the same low turnout, do you think they would quietly cancel it?” she asked. “I don’t think so.”

BCTFA commissioner Andrew Lenton, who’s also the director of this year’s championship, says the para athlete program was introduced on a trial basis and was meant to run for “a couple of years” before getting revisited.

“I can understand that some of the parents are upset by this, but we felt this was the best course of action.”

Farrell said she and other families were never told by the BCTFA that the para athletic program was on a trial basis.

Watkins plans to deliver her petition to the BCTFA’s annual general meeting on June 1, which will also mark the final day of the provincial championship.

She says she’s hopeful para athletes will be allowed back to compete in 2020.

“They clearly didn’t think this through,” she said. “Maybe not as many families were affected as if they had cancelled the whole thing, but people were still affected.”

As for Bushe, he’ll be running in the WestVanRun on the same day he was meant to compete in the provincials, alongside a team dubbed “Ges Do It.”

The team will raise money that will go towards supporting special Olympic athletes.

—With files from Nadia Stewart