The Paralympic world swimming championships are under way in Scotland this week, but there is one notable absence: a Paralympic gold medalist who is no longer classified as disabled enough to compete.
Ian Silverman, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy shortly after his birth and was declared eligible by the International Paralympic Committee to compete shortly before the London 2012 Paralympic Games, has been told he can no longer swim in the event in which he won a gold medal three years ago.
The paradox has been puzzling not only for Silverman, who had to be persuaded to compete in the Paralympics to begin with, but also to his fellow competitors and coaches who had been hoping he would be one of the stars at the world championships and next summer's Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
"I just keep thinking that my name will always have an asterisk," Silverman said. "I mean how can you have a guy with world records and gold medals and then not have him compete? It hurts me a lot.
"I don't understand it. Nobody understands it."
The Paralympic movement has grown exponentially, especially in the wake of the remarkable success in London. The first Paralympic Games were held in Rome in 1960 and were open to 400 wheelchair athletes from 23 countries. More than 4,000 athletes are expected to compete in the 2016 Paralympic Games, and NBC and NBCSN plan to show 66 hours of coverage, an increase of 60.5 hours from the coverage of London.
But the question many Paralympic athletes and coaches are now asking is whether the quick rise in popularity is leading to just as speedy rule changes. Are the sport and its officials able to keep up with the overall growth of the Paralympic movement?
Silverman never considered himself disabled.
Despite spending much of his young life in and out of hospitals, the boy still found ways to make the best of his reality.
Especially when he found solace in a swimming pool.
Following yet another surgery, the 7-year-old Silverman was lowered into a pool from a walker and asked to use a kickboard. After dealing with braces and Botox injections to relax his muscles, swimming was another form of physical therapy.
He quietly trained through his physical obstacles, swimming alongside able-bodied swimmers. Even though he struggled to perform a proper dolphin kick or do some dryland exercises due to flexibility issues in his legs, he felt like just one of the swimmers at Baltimore's Meadowbrook Aquatic & Fitness Center -- the famed training center of Michael Phelps and several other Olympians.
Swimming had given Silverman a newfound confidence, and it opened a door to a world he didn't even know existed. He could not have foreseen that same door being closed on him.
Shortly after his first conversations about the Paralympics with Brian Loeffler, who has coached several Paralympians in Baltimore, Silverman found himself competing in his first Paralympic meet in the spring of 2012 in Cincinnati, where the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) examined him and deemed him eligible to compete in Paralympic competition. More important to Silverman, he warmed to the Paralympic movement, the people and camaraderie.
He later earned a spot on the U.S. team that competed at the 2012 Paralympic Games. In London, he entered seven events, including two relays. Even though he was training at one of the top clubs in the country, he didn't dominate the meet. He won one gold medal, but his best finish in his other four individual races was sixth.
Silverman returned home to a king's welcome. He visited the White House, where he met President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. He was invited to give speeches and work with volunteer programs. He also had his photo placed on the wall at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, where Phelps and other fellow Olympians Katie Hoff, Anita Nall and Beth Botsford have trained.
Silverman had been hoping to build on his Paralympic experience
next summer in Rio. But on April 30, he was informed via email from U.S. Paralympics that he would not be able to compete in his best events in Rio and his chances of competing in the Paralympics at all were virtually over.
You wouldn't necessarily know Silverman had any impairments from looking at him, although he doesn't walk as smoothly as his able-bodied counterparts. Cerebral palsy is a disorder caused by injuries and abnormalities to the brain, and although there are several ways to treat the disease, symptoms tend to become more severe over time. There currently is no cure.
Silverman has had to wear full leg casts and has had numerous surgeries and treatments over the years, including a recent procedure on his ankles on June 23.
Paralympic athletes are classified according to their level of impairment. A swimmer with a lower number in his or her classification level has a higher level of impairment. S1 indicates the most severe impairments while S10, the class in which Silverman had competed in, is considered the class with the least-impaired athletes.
Three years ago, the IPC classified him as an S10 athlete in the freestyle events. Today, the same IPC ruled that he is not disabled enough to compete in that class. Since he was in the class for the least-impaired athletes for his main events, there was no other level for him to compete in.
Silverman was told he could continue to race in the SB9 class for breaststroke, by far his worst event because asymmetry in his legs prevents him from kicking properly. As for his strongest race, the 400-meter freestyle, which he won in London, he has been "classed out."
It is typical for Paralympic athletes to be examined after they turn 18 and Silverman celebrated his 19th birthday on Nov. 6. Since he had been classified before competing in London, he figured he was in no danger of losing his Paralympic status since his condition had not improved.
After being evaluated both in and out of the water the day before the meet started, he was told he was "classed out." Later that day, a second panel of classifiers confirmed the results. Silverman's chances of competing in Rio in his freestyle events were over.
Silverman's mother, Dawn, a nurse practitioner who has spent much of her life shuttling him to swim practices and to doctor's appointments, had traveled to Toronto to see her son compete and felt helpless when she heard the news about his classification status.
"It breaks my heart," Dawn Silverman said. "Ian had a great swimming career before the Paralympics but the Paralympics definitely afforded him a lot of opportunities. This boy has been through so much and this was a positive.
"Our lives had revolved around his swimming and his appointments since the day he was born. Ian is the type of kid who has always sucked it up and never, ever complained. He's been such a trooper. When this whole Paralympic thing happened, we thought it was a reward for everything he had been through, but then to have it turn around and become so ugly ..."
With help from U.S. Paralympics, Ian appealed the decision, but could only argue technicalities in the testing. The IPC upheld its initial conclusion. There are no more tests or other appeals available. Letters were sent on his behalf, including one from Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman, and his parents wrote a letter of appeal. But the IPC said those could not factor into its final decision.
According to Craig Spence, spokesman for the International Paralympic Committee, the organization does not have complete figures on how many athletes have been reclassified or classed out entirely, but said the hope is to have all the athletes properly classified leading up to Rio. Spence said only two athletes were impacted at the Sochi Games (one was declared ineligible and another had a classification change). He added that once a decision is made for an athlete to be classed out and an appeal is turned down, it is final.
In Silverman's case, Spence said two separate teams of classifiers evaluated him and reached the same conclusion: Silverman's disability, which was severe enough for him to be classified in the S10 class in 2012, was not significant enough for him to be classified as a Paralympic athlete in the S10 class in 2015. Silverman's 2015 scores on land qualified him to be classified as a Paralympic athlete, but IPC evaluators determined that any flexibility problems he had out of the water did not impact him in the pool, and that ultimately was the deciding factor. The reason he can still compete in the breaststroke, Spence explained, is that "it comes down to how the impairment impacts an athlete to do the stroke."
Such inconsistencies are increasing. Freestyle swimmer Victoria Arlen was informed a year after becoming a breakout star and winning a gold medal in London that she was ineligible to compete because she couldn't provide conclusive evidence that her impairment was permanent. Not long before competing in London, backstroke specialist Justin Zook's classification changed. He said he had a shot at winning several medals before the classification change. He left with one. Mallory Weggemann, who became paralyzed after taking an epidural injection to combat back pain from shingles, was told she was in the wrong class days before she was set to compete in the freestyle in London.
Weggemann was reclassified from the S7 class to S8, forcing her to alter whole schedule and race strategy days before the biggest competition her career. She went on to win a gold medal in those Games, in the 50 free, but said when she first informed about her re-classification, "I wanted to fly back to the States."
She decided to stick it out and wouldn't be preparing for Rio now if she had called it quits then. Weggemann said the biggest positive change for Paralympic athletes is that the IPC is no longer scheduling classifications at major events such as the Paralympic Games, but rather at smaller competitions.
"I am happy to see some level of positive change," she said. "I will say my proudest moment is that I was able to pull myself together. I was able to be on the starting block on the third day of competition and win a gold medal. I took a situation like that and turned it into a positive."
Weggemann also knows she was lucky in a sense because she can still compete. Silverman, meanwhile, is on the outside looking in.
"Anytime something like that happens to an athlete, first comes shock, then disbelief," said Weggemann, who knows Silverman but is not close to him personally. "Having gone through my own situation with classification, my heart literally sank for him."
Even Silverman's toughest rivals are confused and upset.
"I've won my medals," said Benoit Huot, a nine-time Canadian Paralympic gold medalist who was second behind Silverman in London. "I don't care about that anymore. I want to make the sport better and stronger.
"To me, this whole story is nonsense," Huot added. "He has a disability. What's the difference with Ian between now and 2012?
"I am not a doctor or a classifier, but I have been competing since I was 17 and I don't understand this. One of the biggest challenges we have in the Paralympics is to make the general public understand our sport. We are trying to create visibility and strengthen our sport and I think we're going in the wrong direction with this.
"Why did you make the guy dream?"
For U.S. Paralympics, which had been counting on Ian Silverman to help lead Team USA to the medal podium in Rio, the classification change was a blow. Silverman was also virtually assured a spot on the U.S. team at worlds.
Rick Adams, who joined U.S. Paralympics as the chief of Paralympic sport and national governing bodies organization and development in August, has already taken on the classification system as one of his priorities. He has spent time talking with athletes who have been impacted by this system, including Weggemann and Arlen, participated in the appeal process for Silverman and traveled to the IPC's headquarters in Bonn, Germany, to better educate himself about the process.
Adams, who is currently in Scotland for worlds, said he understood it was a "frustrating process" for the athletes who have been impacted by the classification process. He has also advised athletes to get their voices heard through various IPC committees dealing with medical, legal and athlete issues.
Although U.S. Paralympics has not actively pushed for change in terms of the classification process, Adams said, "If there was an effort by the IPC, we would want to be a part of that conversation."
Despite the setbacks, Silverman has established himself as a top swimmer, earning a scholarship at University of Southern California and making the U.S. Junior National cut. He is part of the USC team and has competed against able-bodied athletes his whole career. He is not the fastest swimmer at USC and still has problems in the water that his able-bodied counterparts do not have.
Silverman's primary coach in Baltimore, Erik Posegay, has spent just over three years working with him on ways to improve despite his impairments. Posegay said Silverman cannot tuck in his knees the way many elite, able-bodied swimmers can, and because he lacks flexibility in his legs, he cannot elicit power off his turns, either.
"Other swimmers get spring when they hit the wall," Posegay said. "Ian goes into the wall like a thud."
Because Silverman has trained around able-bodied swimmers his whole career and continues to do so at USC, Posegay said he has worked to keep up with the pack. Silverman is limited in some dryland training, but has worked to improve his upper-body strength to compensate for his weaknesses.
Dave Salo, a veteran coach who works with Silverman at USC, said he liked Silverman's work ethic and was impressed that Silverman wanted to compete at the Division I level.
"He wasn't going to go to a Division II school just so his times would make more of an impact," Salo said.
Silverman, who cannot have an agent or make any money through endorsements per NCAA rules, had hoped that once he completed his collegiate career that he could do those things and help further promote the Paralympic movement. Meanwhile, he continues to swim and recently returned home to Baltimore for the summer.
Posegay sees promise in some of Silverman's times, particularly in the 400. Silverman would have to shave about five seconds (he is the Paralympic world-record holder in that event at 4:03.57) to make the U.S. Olympic trials cut of 3:58.69. It is a lofty goal, but in the absence of his Paralympic goals, it is one to strive for. Silverman would not be the first Paralympic swimmer to make the U.S. Olympic trials cut (blind swimmer Trischa Zorn competed in the Olympic trials in the 1980s), and it would be a remarkable feat. No Paralympic swimmer has ever qualified for a pool event in the Olympic Games. (Natalie du Toit, a Paralympic swimmer, competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics in open-water competition.)
"I've always had a goal to make Olympic trials but it had recently been coupled with a Paralympic goal," Silverman wrote in an email. "Now I just have one goal to focus on. I don't know if it will help me move on, because any time I swim will be compared to the time that is winning the Paralympics. I just want to swim fast enough to say if I was there, that would be me on top of the podium."
He will swim at least 60,000 meters weekly, and Posegay said the clock is ticking to the U.S. Olympic trials.
"One door kind of unfortunately closed," Posegay said. "But maybe now another door has opened." He paused, smiled and added, "And wouldn't that make a great story?"