Belgian Maxime Carabin, double champion Paralympic in Paris, accused of having lied about his handicap – Liberation

For non-conneters, he is an exceptional champion. But for its competitors, the performance Made by Maxime Carabin during the 100 m and 400 m is a large hoax. A RTBF investigation published Wednesday, February 26, highlights the charges aimed at the Belgian, Double paralympic champion in Paris. The 24-year-old para-athlete born in Liège is accused of having lied about the real nature of his handicap and cheating for several years.

Maxime Carabin says he has suffered from a rare disease since an accident in 2019 when he was playing a handball match. He claims to have lost the use of his legs and his left hand. Since 2022, he contributes in a wheelchair in the T52 category. The latter brings together the paralyzed athletes but also tetriplics.

« My spinal cord no longer works as it should do, he said. 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 namesTuesday, February 25, detailed Maxime Carabin with Belgian public television.

The RTBF obtained the conclusions of the first examination report made less than a year after the accident which would have led to the quadriplegia of Maxime Carabin. These tests, which make it possible to study the proper functioning of the motor route and the means of sensitivity, are regularly practiced in medicine to identify possible anomalies such as bonds of the spinal cord. However, the conclusions of Maxime Carabin's tests do not support the version defended by the double Olympic champion. «  »We retain from your exams the following elements: the conductions of the sensitive influx and motors are made in a strictly normal way at your spinal cord. These data are 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« , Specifies the medical text cited by RTBF. And to add: « We note a discrepancy between the declared absence of perception of electrical stimuli or laser and the strictly normal character of brain responses. ”

Faced with this observation, most of the doctors who examined Maxime Carabin in Belgium considered that he was not eligible for the practice of disruption in competition since he did not meet the admission criteria set by Medical classification regulations Established by the LHF, the French -speaking Handispot League. But the sportsman persisted. And managed to obtain his classification in the T52 category in June 2022. For this, he provided a certificate, written by a Liège neurologist. The document indicates that it suffers from Hirayama's disease, a rare pathology observed mainly in Asia, which is the cause of its impairment. But the specialists interviewed by RTBF note that this disease affects only the upper limbs and cannot be the cause of legs.

Above all, notes the Belgian media, the doctors would have overlooked an examination of the lower members of the Paralympic champion during the handing over his classification, and he would not have undergone any tests in the legs or feet. His classification was then confirmed in Switzerland in 2023, and finally in Dubai in 2024.

Questioned by RTBFthe Belgian Paralympic Committee recognized that the file posed « Many questions ». «  »It is true that in the past, I had already or colleagues to me had already had conversations with athletes who had told us about their doubts, abounded its director Olek Kazimirowski. But we had never received the slightest convincing element or the slightest proof which attests to anything.»»

Faced with the doubts that weigh on the disability of the Belgian, four competitors of Swiss, Austrian and Lithuanian origin would have filed a complaint with the World Para Athletics, the Iternational Federation of Para-Athletics or the IPC, the Paralympic International Committee, to demand its disqualification. For its part, the Liégeois defends itself from any imposture, and believes that its competitors « Powerful to defeat him on the track, choose, in an attempt to kill him, the way of slander.»»