The brilliant humour of Australian Paralympic wheelchair racer Christie Dawes shone through when asked about the massive technological divide splitting the sport.
“No one’s given a shit about our sport for years and years and now we’ve got these nerds sitting in a lab somewhere saying, ‘What shit can we make go faster? Why not try wheelchairs?'” the seven-time Paralympian told Wide World of Sports.
She’s thrilled that cashed-up companies associated with Formula 1 are using their expertise to make wheelchairs faster and turn the sport into a sexier attraction.
But her excitement is tempered by the fact that while a small percentage of athletes are rocketing along in wheelchairs valued in excess of $50,000, the majority are watching them disappear in the distance as they compete in wheelchairs that cost between $5000 and $15,000.
Dawes is among a host of knowledgeable sources Wide World of Sports has interviewed during the lead-up to Sunday’s New York City Marathon, in which Switzerland’s Marcel Hug will almost certainly be roaring to victory in his Sauber OT FOXX masterpiece.
Sauber operates in Formula 1 under the guise of Alfa Romeo. The Swiss motorsport engineering giant combined forces with Swiss Side, a company that supplies cycling technology, and Orthotec, a subsidiary specialising in medical aids, with one mission: to design the fastest wheelchair in history and propel Hug to glory at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
That mission was accomplished and he’s barely dropped a race since, dominating on the track and in the marathon.
As Sauber Formula 1 technicians have toiled away in the Swiss municipality of Nottwil, brainiacs at Honda have gone about designing their own spectacular wheelchair in Tokyo in collaboration with Yachiyo, a manufacturing company that produces products such as sunroofs and fuel tanks.
Honda powered Max Verstappen’s Red Bull to Formula 1 glory in 2021 and is also powering top wheelchair athletes such as Switzerland’s Manuela Schar and American Susannah Scaroni, who race in the company’s top-of-the-range Kakeru Flagship wheelchair.
Japan’s answer to Switzerland was not only inspired by Formula 1, but the company’s jets.
Racing with Honda wheels but a Top End frame, a set-up costing about $15,000, Switzerland’s Catherine Debrunner has often beaten her rivals and their superior pieces of equipment, which are fully carbon and supremely aerodynamic.
But consider this insight from Jake Lappin, an Australian Paralympic wheelchair racer, on the fallout of Hug’s partnership with Sauber.
“Everyone’s racing for second; that’s just how it is,” Lappin told Wide World of Sports.
“There’s a guy from America, Daniel Romanchuk. He’s a genetic freak, he’s huge, he’s got the longest arms I’ve ever seen and he’s just a monster. For a long time he seemed to be unbeatable or would rarely lose and that was just his physiology; he was gifted with that. But now he can’t get anywhere near Marcel in this new chair.”
Eliza Stankovic-Mowle, another Australian Paralympic wheelchair racer, put the technological divide into a grim perspective.
“The crazy thing is we can have athletes from a developing African nation racing in our old racechairs from 15-20 years ago on a start line next to a Honda or a Sauber racechair,” Stankovic-Mowle told Wide World of Sports.
“So that’s the crazy thing about our sport, that disparity.
“In another 20 years are the developing African nations going to be having the Honda and Sauber hand-me-downs? I would like to think so … and I wonder what the sport would look like then, but I also wonder what the elite, high-level, podium chairs will look like at that stage, too.”
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Dawes baulks at the cost of the Sauber and Honda wheelchairs.
“If you look at wheelchair basketball, if you have an accident and end up in a chair, at least you have some experience, usually, of having bounced a ball, thrown a ball, shot a ball in a hoop. You’ve got some kind of something you can bring to the table, some kind of any relatable skill,” Dawes told Wide World of Sports.
“With wheelchair racing you can’t bring any kind of relatable skill to it. It’s not even like pushing an everyday chair … because you’re in a kneeling position, your grip is totally different, your rims. Everything about it is different.
“So it’s a really difficult sport to get used to and stick with, and we’ve got such depth in our sport that it’s a really hard sport to crack into the big time.
“Now on top of it you’ve got this cost factor that makes you think, ‘Ah, shit, if I want to be the best then I really have to put the money in and get one of these chairs. Is it worth it?’.
“I’m worried that the more these chairs end up on podiums the more athletes we will lose because they think it’s all too hard.
“I think people taking an interest in our sport and making it better is a really good thing, and I get excited about that, about athletes going faster and times tumbling.
“My only concern is whether it’s an even playing field.”
Hug won gold in the men’s 800 metres, 1500 metres, 5000 metres and marathon at the Tokyo Paralympics.
The 37-year-old, known as the “Silver Bullet” because of his metallic helmet and phenomenal speed, has also enjoyed mind-blowing success in the world’s major marathons over the last three years, winning in Berlin and London three times, and Tokyo, Chicago and Boston twice. Victory on Sunday would mark his third win in succession in the New York City Marathon.
His Sauber wheelchair has turned him into a near-unbeatable force, but he was already a gun competitor.
He scored two gold medals, four silver medals and two bronze medals across three Paralympic Games in the years that preceded the creation of the Sauber wheelchair.
He was also a regular winner of the world’s major marathons.
Australia’s Madison de Rozario also has the luxury of racing in Sauber’s OT FOXX, although it’s worth noting she’s struggled to adjust to the equipment on the track.
Her coach, Australian Paralympic wheelchair great Louise Sauvage, says de Rozario’s Sauber “rolls amazingly well” on the road.
Dawes, Lappin and Stankovic-Mowle, who all race in wheelchairs valued between $10,000 and $15,000, admire Hug, de Rozario and all other athletes with a Sauber or Honda model. They all say Hug and company are exceptional athletes.
They just have a gripe with the huge advantage those wheelchairs give the athletes who race in them.
“It just feels like people are getting gains because they have way more money and way more support from different companies that want to investment in athletics,” Lappin said.
“The fact that they do is really good and I shouldn’t be holding the sport back, but it’d be great if it was just not really a financial thing that makes someone better or worse.
“It used to be about keeping your chair in good nick and also your training and management.”
He also said he didn’t want two wheelchairs to be “ruling the entire field for the next five years”.
“You still need to know how to push a chair, you still need to have years of experience to utilise a piece of technology like that,” Stankovic-Mowle added.
“But if you’re never in the financial position to take the step and spend $50,000, or if you’re not able to gain sponsorship to acquire a chair like that, you’ll always wonder what the difference is between what you’re in now and taking that next step. Some people will never have that opportunity to find out.”
The Australian Institute of Sport plays a significant role in assisting Australia’s wheelchair racing athletes, including de Rozario, Dawes and Lappin.
The AIS engineering team doesn’t manufacture wheelchairs, but it collaborates with suppliers and makes adjustments to ensure the equipment is as suitable for individuals as possible.
AIS engineering lead Andy Richardson told Wide World of Sports that the team had “re-manufactured” some components of de Rozario’s Sauber wheelchair to make them more lightweight.
The AIS has also created a customised carbon knee insert for the Paralympic champion to ensure she’s “perfectly connected to the wheelchair”.
Comments made when the OT FOXX was being tested for the first time are telling indications of the advantage those with the Sauber wheelchair have.
“It goes so far that I’m afraid that he will be disqualified in the end,” quipped Steffen Schrodt, a former managing director at Sauber, in a documentary called GO4GOLD.
“I can’t drive with this racing machine; I can only fly with this machine,” Hug laughed.
After Hug’s domination of the Tokyo Paralympics, six-time British Paralympic gold medallist David Weir described the OT FOXX as “a Ferrari of a chair”.
Stankovic-Mowle described Hug’s situation as “the perfect storm”.
“He’s got all of his ducks in a row,” said the retired two-time Paralympian.
“You could put him in a $6000 chair and he would still probably be at the top.
“He has the piece of technology and he’s got the assistance to actually make that technology work for him, and years and years and years of experience. He’s not just a flash in the pan. Marcel has been on the scene since he was a kid.
“We still do see athletes that are in the aluminium chairs on the podium because it comes down to that technical excellence of our sport and the years of learning race tactics and the pushing techniques. There’s so much more to it.
“But those racechairs definitely do elevate the already very, very technically skilled athletes.”
Lappin drew upon Formula 1 and cycling to explain his argument.
“As different as wheelchair racing is to traditional athletics, it still is athletics, so maybe there should be one sort of shape and then you go from there,” Lappin said.
“It should be a training thing, not so much a technology thing.
“We’re not cycling, we’re not Formula 1; it’s just athletics.”
There is no cost cap in wheelchair racing, but World Para Athletics rules state that all wheelchairs must be commercially available, except in some circumstances.
Adding to the dispute that’s dividing wheelchair racing is whether Sauber has made Hug’s OT FOXX commercially available. The OT FOXX is available to purchase, but it’s believed by some people in the sport that Hug’s wheelchair differs to other versions of the same model.
Some cars in Formula 1 are superior to others; a host of factors have enabled Verstappen to consistently derive greater downforce than his rivals in his Red Bull, helping him to his third world championship title in succession.
However, a cost cap ensures no team is at a financial disadvantage regarding cars. While some teams were spending upward of A$600 million per season before the introduction of a cost cap in 2021 — an amount of money that most teams did not have at their disposal — there’s a cost cap of US$135 million (about A$210 million) for the 2023 world championship.
Hugh Brasher, the race director of the London Marathon, defended the boom of wheelchair racing technology when asked about the financial gulf.
“Look, I think you can say in lots of sports there’s a technical divide, and progress comes through technology, so the more we can encourage people to use technology, I’m actually all for it,” Brasher told Wide World of Sports.
“There’s been a huge thing about the running shoes and the depth of the midsole and how much help it gives you. Should world records be broken in these shoes? Should records now be compared to those from 10 or 20 years ago?
“It’s part of what sport’s about.
“That technology becomes more mass; it starts very expensive, starts very niche, but then starts to go wider.
“So, personally, I’m all in favour of it.”
Brasher also pointed out the impact of technology on exposure.
“We were part of the organisation team that put on Eliud Kipchoge’s INEOS 1:59 Challenge,” he said.
“Some people said, ‘Well, we had 41 different pacers, we had lasers coming out the car, a V-shaped formation that had never been done before’. It was a talking point, it got more people interested in marathon running. If you look at the statistics of what was going on, more people were interested in that than any other marathon in the history of our sport.
“So, we should have these talking points and I’m all in favour of technology.”
Richardson underlined the positive trickle-down effect of the work of Sauber and Honda.
“I think it’s fantastic that these organisations who previously had a focus on high-performance vehicles, including the pinnacle of motorsport in Formula 1, are now collaborating with and supporting para athletes and exploring that area,” said the AIS guru.
“Similar to how Formula 1 technology cascades to the road car that you and I would buy, we had a view that the technology that companies … are developing for the para athletes will cascade down to pathways athletes and emerging athletes and athletes who have acquired injuries and are looking to get into sport as a means to enjoy life more.”
Sauvage coached de Rozario to gold in the women’s 800 metres and marathon at the Tokyo Paralympics, at which point she was yet to begin racing in her Sauber wheelchair.
Nor did the Western Australian have her Sauber wheelchair when she won the New York City Marathon in 2021, but she rode the company’s OT FOXX to London Marathon glory in 2023, conquering the race a second time after her triumph in 2018.
“I think it’s a shame that there’s such a big divide,” de Rozario’s coach told Wide World of Sports.
“It’s really tough. Just to get into the market and get into wheelchair racing it’s expensive to start with.
“But most people in any sport wouldn’t go straight to the top; you have to work up to that or get sponsors or find a lot more funding. The kids I get involved are starting in recycled gear and we’re trying to find chairs that fit them.”
Lappin thinks the Sauber and Honda wheelchairs, at least in their current forms, should be outlawed.
Dawes says one solution is tightening some specifications to restrict how aerodynamic the wheelchairs can be, while tossing up the prospect of a cost cap.
Stankovic-Mowle has an issue with certain corporate companies.
“Government funding is one thing, but we’ve got a community and we’ve got corporates. This comes into the disparity between professional codes and other sports,” Stankovic-Mowle said.
“I don’t want to point fingers or name names, but corporations will have no hesitation in dropping 10, 15, 20 million dollars for a professional code, but wouldn’t blink, wouldn’t even look or consider dropping money into other Olympic or Paralympic disciplines.”
She also drew attention to big-money athletes in other sports.
“I’d like to think that even if some of those athletes that are on huge contracts with their professional codes … gave up part of their deal to put to other sporting people, the difference that would create would be absolutely massive,” she said.
“Let’s go with the figure of around $1000. If every professional footballer and cricketer put $1000 into this fund, the difference that would create for other Olympic and Paralympic sports would be massive.”
Australia’s cricketers committed to an initiative of that kind in October, throwing their weight behind the country’s netballers amid a pay war with Netball Australia.
The Australian Cricketers’ Association dubbed it a “fighting fund” and called for other players’ unions across multiple sports to offer assistance to the netballers, who have been out of contract since September 30.
“We’re not all equal [in wheelchair racing] unfortunately,” Stankovic-Mowle added.
“This is the issue that we have; it is not always an equal playing field.
“But there are small steps that we can take to alleviate that line.”
Brasher pointed out that the London Marathon prizemoney for the male and female wheelchair winners had increased to US$45,000 in 2023 (about A$70,000) and said it would receive another boost for 2024.
The London Marathon boss stressed the importance of prizemoney and sponsors.
“What we’re trying to do is widen the ability for people to invest and what you need is more sponsors, you need more firms coming in,” Brasher said.
“Honda is a car manufacturer producing a racechair that’s incredibly aerodynamic.
“There are lots of other car manufacturers potentially that could get involved. There are bike manufacturers.
“We need to attract sponsors and that’s what we should be doing; encouraging more people to come in.
“It shouldn’t just be, ‘One person has managed to do it’. It’s like, ‘Well, OK, how can we get more sponsors to do it?’.
“How many car manufacturers are there? A lot. So, why can’t we get them to start looking at it differently, supporting different para athletes? Suddenly you’re getting more sponsors coming in and you’re then benefitting everybody. That’s the conversation I think we should be having; how can we attract other companies to do what Honda have done?”
As Dawes put it, “these nerds sitting in a lab somewhere” have polarised opinion.
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