{"id":482449,"date":"2021-07-23T19:26:02","date_gmt":"2021-07-24T02:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=482449"},"modified":"2021-07-28T23:18:11","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T06:18:11","slug":"paralympic-gold-medalist-roy-perkins-slams-becca-meyers-nonsense-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/paralympic-gold-medalist-roy-perkins-slams-becca-meyers-nonsense-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Paralympic Gold Medalist Roy Perkins Slams Becca Meyers\u2019 \u2018Nonsense\u2019 Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roy Perkins<\/strong>, a three-time Paralympian and 10-time medalist, took to social media to hit back at \u201cnonsense\u201d claims by fellow Paralympian Becca Meyers<\/strong> over her allegations of mistreatment by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.<\/p>\n

Meyers recently withdrew from the Paralympics in Tokyo<\/a>, which was slated to be her third, over concerns that the USOPC wouldn\u2019t adequately equip her with a personal care assistant. Normally, Meyers is allowed to bring her mother as a PCA for international tournaments. But the COVID-19 pandemic is limiting the amount of people traveling \u2013 and thus, PCAs \u2013 for Team USA, with just one for the 33-person delegation. With those limits, Meyers, who is deaf-blind, withdrew from the Games. Her plight has drawn attention from U.S. Senators urging the USOPC to look into its shortcomings<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Perkins hit back on his Facebook account. He decried the narrative as \u201cnot a disability rights issue\u201d and alluded to the fact that he and other para-athletes have dealt with similar situations for years. He cautions against what he believes is a \u201cbeef with the USOP\u201d (sic) generating negative attention on the larger Paralympic movement.<\/p>\n

From Perkins\u2019 post:<\/p>\n

This sounds horrible to the general public, who don\u2019t realize that the majority of swimmers in every Games don\u2019t have an assistant, despite often having disabilities which frankly are more severe than partial lack of sight and hearing. Of course nobody wants to acknowledge that (and indeed most of the headlines very conveniently omit that she is neither fully blind nor deaf, but it adds to the perceived injustice that they are trying to sell), but when we\u2019re talking about a limited number of assistant spots, that\u2019s a calculation that needs to be made and always has been made. Full quadriplegic, fully blind, and intellectually impaired athletes have come without an assistant. Their teammates and the coaching staff helped them. They got through the Games safely and successfully. We build some character and learn to deal with doing shit we don\u2019t necessarily want to do, living in non-ideal circumstances and leaning on each other while still performing at a high level.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Perkins, who competed in the S5 classification<\/a>, won gold in the men\u2019s 50 fly in Rio and Beijing. He\u2019s also earned four silver medals and four bronze medals. He calls Meyers\u2019 decision \u201can excuse meant to give validation to selfish decisions\u201d and intimates many in the Paralympic community agree with his assessment.<\/p>\n

From the post again:<\/p>\n

It is an insult to all the athletes who have gone through their own hell over the years and either got through it or had to quit silently and without excuse, to see somebody essentially play the public sympathy disability card because she didn\u2019t want to follow same rules as everybody else.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read Roy Perkins\u2019 full post here<\/a>:<\/p>\n