Wheelchair racers face tension on race day
By Timothy Carlson

There is a surprising amount of tension among the racers in the wheelchair category. Australian competitor John MacLean and Floridian racer David Lindsey have issues that divide them.

"I think when John MacLean took (World Triathlon Corporation president) David Yates’s waiver to let him continue the race last year--although he missed the bike cutoff time--it sent the wrong message to disabled athletes," said Lindsey, who himself is a bilateral paraplegic with legs amputated at different levels above and below the knee.

"He may not have meant it that way, but it was condescending to disabled athletes. We should get no favors and meet conditions as they are presented to us."

MacLean doesn’t take such criticism personally, but says that in a way he agrees with Lindsey. "I didn’t want to go on, but my family had come a long way and David Yates invited me to finish to set a precedent to show wheelchair athletes can finish the course in 17 hours," he said.

MacLean, 30, of Sydney, Australia, feels that it is unfortunate that the WTC has lumped Lindsey--who completes the run in a wheelchair, but hooks up his prosthesis legs to a more standard two-wheel bicycle--in the same category with athletes like himself who must use a hand-cranked recumbent bike.

"It’s easier," MacLean says. "I totally respect David as an athlete and a person, but the guys who use hand-cranked bikes feel he belongs in another category."

Maybe so, but at the Panama City qualifier they got out of the water together and MacLean got out of the transition first. Lindsey biked away to a 13-minute gap, then MacLean cut the gap to a mere two minutes at the end.

"I wish him a great race and all the best and I believe I can beat him," MacLean said. "But more than anything I want to make the standard bike cutoff and earn a finisher's medal like everyone else. We’ll save the evolution of the rules for the future. Right now, I just want to say it is a privilege for wheelchair athletes to race here."

Lindsey beat MacLean for the fifth wheelchair slot at Panama City, but the Australian came back at Santa Rosa, California, in July and earned a slot in the Hawaiian Ironman.

Timothy Carlson is at Kona covering the Ironman for Outside Online.