This is the curious tale of the wheelchair racer who was banned... for being able to walk.

Daniel Sadler is one of the best wheelchair racers in Britain, good enough to be the training partner of multi-Paralympic gold medallist Tanni Grey-Thompson.

Last year he came third in the wheelchair section of the Great North Run, and felt he could have won if his tactics had been better.

But that's where the trouble started. When organisers found out he was able-bodied, they demanded his prize money back.

"To say somebody is disabled puts them in a very broad category," he said.

"In a wheelchair race, I could have minus one foot and be technically disabled, and allowed to race at Paralympic level.

"But really, when you're sat in a chair, you're cut off from the waist down - it doesn't make any difference.

"If you look at wheelchair racing as a professional sport, which it is at the top level, I don't think there's really a problem."

Insulting

Clare Strange, a disabled athlete who plays wheelchair basketball for England, said she supports Sadler's case.

"You try keeping my friends out of my chair if I'm not in it," she said.

"Some people find that really insulting, but I don't. If he's mad enough to want to push a marathon. he should be allowed to.

"He's not trying to enter the Paralympics falsely, as some did in 2000. He's upfront. He says he's able-bodied, and he wants to compete."

"People assume Dan has an unfair advantage, but in fact there is none at all," she told reporters.

"He may have stomach muscles that work, but he's carrying more weight, he gets cramp in the legs and he makes a less aerodynamic shape."

Sadler's surreal case has highlighted the debate over the true purpose of wheelchair racing.

Those on his side say that, for it to be considered a proper sport, everyone must be allowed to take part.

"It may have started as a form of rehab, but it is no longer a ghetto activity," says Grey-Thompson.

Disadvantage

Others, including the British Wheelchair Sports Foundation, say able-bodied athletes have plenty of sports they could take up.

They see a future where able-bodied people enter the sport in increasing numbers, until the point where disabled competitors begin to feel at a disadvantage.

"I've done running, I've done rowing, cycling and all sorts," says Sadler.

"But because my dad was a wheelchair racer for 20 years, it seemed the natural thing to me to do.

"I wouldn't say I hijacked the sport.

"I got into it through my dad. I wish he'd been into motor-racing, but he wasn't."