Paralympic swimmer wrongly disqualified after being accused of breaking little-known rule

He was reinstated after being wrongly disqualified.

Paralympic swimmer Ahmed Kelly won silver in the 150m medley SM3 final after facing disqualification in one of the earlier heats.

The Australian swimmer has a condition called diastrophic dysplasia, and is missing both arms from the elbow down, and both legs below the knee.

The Iraq-born athlete has appeared at three previous Paralympic Games, but this time round he faced disqualification after being accused of breaking a little-known rule after coming second in his heat.

Thankfully, though, Swimming Australia immediately appealed the decision and won after pointing out the mistake that had been made.

Kelly was disqualified after performing butterfly rather than front crawl in the freestyle leg of the event.

However, Swimming Australia pointed out that only backstroke and breaststroke are banned in this section.

32-year-old Kelly went on to finish second in the race, behind Germany's Josia Topf.

Annabelle Williams, a fellow Paralympic swimmer, explained to the Australian outlet Channel 9 that the judges had called the wrong decision.

“Now the good lawyer in me went to the rules and the definition of freestyle is that you can perform whatever you want, as long as it's not backstroke or breaststroke," she said.

“You can do whatever strokes you like - freestyle or double-arm butterfly. Ahmed had performed double-arm butterfly and so I can't understand why that rule seems to have been in breach.

“And secondly, [as for] swimming strokes in the incorrect order - he definitely didn't do that. There's video footage of him swimming the first lap on his back, the second lap doing breaststroke, and the third lap the double-arm butterfly, which is absolutely permissible when you're swimming freestyle.”