“It’s slander”: Maxime Carabin, gold medalist at the Paris Paralympic Games, cheated?

Double gold medalist at the Paris 2024 paralympic games on 100 m and 400 m (T52), five-time world champion and undefeated at the international level, the Belgian para-athlete Maxime Carabin finds himself in the turmoil. Four of his opponents are demanding his disqualification by calling into question the classification of his handicap.

RTBF conducted the investigation. On a first document it has obtained, it is indicated on the Carabin medical examination that: “The conductions of the sensitive and motor influx are made in a strictly normal manner at the level of your spinal cord. This data is entirely compatible with the rest of your file which does not demonstrate any structural lesion in your spinal cord or your brain which would be likely to cause paraplegia. ”

“Perfectly normal” results

The Belgian media showed these documents to Doctor François Wang, doctor of the locomotor system and head of the Department of Clinical Neurophysiology of the Sart-Tilman CHU. “All the results are negative,” he notes. So when we read this, we should not expect to have a truly organic neurological pathology. We do not imagine that we could have a deficit, except when we obviously pay in psychiatric possibilities. But from a purely organic and functional point of view, the results are perfectly normal. »»

These results are confirmed by other medical examinations: a urodynamic assessment, electromyographies (EMG) and electroneuromyographies (ENMG) notably carried out in different hospitals in the province of Liège. All these examinations, which assess the function of nerves and muscles, confirm the absence of neurological pathology. But in a diagnosis established by a Liège neurologist in June 2022, it is referred to Hirayama’s disease. This disease does not produce the symptoms that allow us to be classified in the “T52” category, which brings together para-athletes with severe harm and total leg or trunk.

“This disease does not affect the legs. You cannot be quadriplegic with a Hirayama disease, it is not possible, ”explains Professor Maertens. “Hirayama’s disease only affects upper members and in principle only one of them. There is therefore no reason to be in a wheelchair, adds François Wang.

In Belgium, all the classifier doctors who examined Maxime Carabin considered that he was not eligible for the practice of the competition of competition in Belgium. However, he obtained a classification at the international level, in June 2022

“It’s slander”

Questioned by the Belgian television channel, Maxime Carabin regretted “that impruating to defeat him on the track, his opponents choose, in an attempt to shoot him, the way of slander” and affirmed that he was not aware of the complaints of his foreign opponents.

He adds: “It is a rare disease, which I had following a small hanging in 2019 and therefore my spinal cord no longer works as it should do. It very strongly reaches my upper members and the lower limbs are affected by cascade. So I’m in the chair like a quadriplegic person. I have no clear, precise lesion, but the marrow was affected by an amyotrophy with very specific names. »»

He also mentioned Hirayama’s disease: “This is the slightly more simplified name. And so, as I said, since it is an attack on the cervical level, that makes a cascade, and then following the accident that I had, it did not help ”.

Under these conditions which of the future of Maxime Carabin’s career? “The rest will depend on the analysis that will be made by World Para Atlhetics and the IPC,” says the Belgian Paralympic Committee, still at RTBF. It will be up to them to estimate what are the following to take. Maxime has an international classification which is valid today. Will she remain it tomorrow? This is another question. »»

For its part, the French -speaking Handisport League reacted via a press release: “There is no doubt that the investigation carried out and the elements collected are causing questions, but to date, the IPC has not informed us of any official complaint having been filed to challenge this classification. »»