How a classification change ended Korey's Commonwealth Games hopes

As the track cycling competition at the 2026 Commonwealth Games gets underway, Australians expecting to see Paralympic champion Korey Boddington in action will be left disappointed.

The popular para cyclist, who won the kilometre C4-5 time trial in Paris, has joined swimmer Alexa Leary as another high-profile para athlete removed from the Glasgow Games after a reclassification of his disability .

Leary, the reigning S9 100m world record holder , was to make her Commonwealth Games debut in Scotland but was reclassified as an S10 athlete earlier this year.

Partly due to the stripped-down nature of these Games, there are no sprint freestyle events for S10 swimmers at the Tollcross pool, with the only event in that category being the 200-metre individual medley, which Leary does not compete in.

Boddington, the reigning Sir Hubert Opperman Trophy winner and 2025 Australian cyclist of the year, was also reclassified, twice in the space of a year, first becoming eligible to compete, and then ineligible.

Classification for para athletes has long been a contentious and complicated issue.

The process exists in para sport to enable athletes with different impairment types — not necessarily the same disabilities — the chance to compete on a relatively level playing field.

"International classification is conducted by a panel comprising medical classifiers and technical classifiers before a competition, after which they will be informed which class they are in and why," AusCycling told ABC Sport in a statement.

"Their role is to assess whether an athlete has an eligible impairment that meets the minimum impairment criteria for Para cycling, assess the extent to which the athlete is able to execute the specific tasks and activities fundamental to Para cycling, and, where required, undertake observation in competition assessment."

Within the classification framework imposed by the sport's governing body, the UCI, Boddington — who won two Paralympic medals as a C4 athlete — was, briefly, reclassified as a C3 athlete in 2025.

This indicates a higher level of impairment than under which he competed in Paris. In cycling, the scale is from 1-5, where 1 is the most severe impairment and 5 the least.

Boddington only made his first national team appearance in the Paralympic year of 2024.

He endeared himself to the Australian public with his love of burritos, enjoying up to four of them a day: "You know how many carbs are in the wrap, and you can specifically portion out all your protein that are on them," he told AusCycling in 2025 by way of explanation.

It earned him the affectionate nickname the Flying Burrito.

For an athlete like Boddington, who lives with an acquired brain injury and had not spent all that long in the sport, it is understandable that his classification level was still being sorted out.

But having been reclassified, Boddington promptly won four world championship gold medals as a C3 athlete at the 2025 world championships in Rio, winning the men's sprint, 1,000-metre (kilo) time trial and elimination race before helping Australia clinch victory in the mixed C1-5 team sprint.

The 30-year-old Queenslander, the world record holder for the C4 flying 200m sprint time trial, also broke world records in the C3 flying 200m sprint and the C3 kilo at the Oceania Championships in Cambridge, New Zealand in February this year.

He won four gold medals in total at those championships: the kilo, sprint, individual pursuit and mixed C1-5 team sprint, as well as winning silver medals in the elimination and scratch races.

All signs were pointing towards Boddington competing in the C1-3 3,000m individual pursuit and 1,000m time trial events at the Games in Glasgow.

However, upon his return from New Zealand, Boddington was reclassified a C4 athlete and competed in that category at the TrackNats in Brisbane in late March.

Boddington still won gold in the sprint, elimination, scratch, kilo and C1-C5 team sprint at the Anna Meares Velodrome.

However, there are only four men's para cycling events set to be contested on the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow; none of which C4 athletes are eligible for — the sprint and 1,000m time trial in the tandem B category, and the 3,000m individual pursuit and 1,000m time trial events in the C1-3 classification.

Being rubbed out of a major competition like the Commonwealth Games, the only multi-sport event where able-bodied and para athletes compete on the same program, through no fault of their own, is a bitter pill for the athletes to swallow.

And classification can be a very sensitive and personal process.

A Four Corners investigation in 2023 found that some Paralympic athletes were deliberately exaggerating their impairments in a bid to win medals and that the system itself was ripe for manipulation.

AusCycling said it took care to ensure that its athletes are educated about classification throughout their time in the sport.

That takes the form of education about the classification system itself, guidance from classification experts, discussion of possible classification outcomes, and planning for different scenarios.

"The focus is on ensuring athletes understand the UCI Classification Rules, including eligible impairments, sport class profiles and assessment methods, while continuing to focus on their development and performance goals," the statement read.

The statement also noted that "not all classification outcomes can be anticipated, particularly for more complex impairment profiles".

Classification for para athletes can take place over the course of an athlete's career to ensure they are in their correct category for competition.

They may also have to be tested if the criteria for their classification change or if the governing body changes its tests. In cycling, that falls under the UCI's jurisdiction.

When a classification panel allocates a sport class to an athlete, it also assigns a status to that status: confirmed, review at the ...

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