A controversial reclassification wrecked the chances of Whangarei's Cameron Leslie and his New Zealand Wheelblacks at the Asia-Oceania Wheelchair Rugby Championships in Icheon, Korea, meaning they failed to qualify for the 2012 London Paralympics.
The ninth world-ranked New Zealand team headed into the recent Oceania tournament confident they could finish in the top two (from four teams competing - Australia, NZ, Japan, and Korea) in order to qualify for next year's Paralympics. However, things did not pan out that way, and it has left the Kiwi team feeling frustrated.
New Zealand had a successful start to the tournament, defeating Korea 71-42 on day one, and losing to Japan by just one point. On day two, they came back to beat Japan 49-44. The Kiwis were narrowly beaten by Australia 57-52 which meant they would play Japan again in the semifinals.
"The tournament went well up until the day of the semifinal where we were thrown a curve ball from the international body [International Wheelchair Rugby Federation]. Basically my disability classification got changed, which going by tournament rules, cannot happen, three hours before tip-off," Leslie said.
The decision effectively took out their second strongest line-up and took out Leslie for most of the game.
