Classifications in Paralympics Sports

France will be hosting its first-ever Summer Paralympic Games from 28 August to 8 September 2024. The programme will include 22 sports, 549 events. The Paralympic Games are the ultimate goal for athletes with disabilities.

The Paralympics are the parallel Games to the Olympics and the name illustrates how the two movements exist side-by-side. The Paralympic Games are governed by the International Paralympic Committee [IPC].

Brief history

The Paralympic movement we know today started small in 1944, when, at the request of the British Government, Dr. Ludwig Guttmann opened a spinal injuries centre at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, not far from London. The purpose was to assist the large number of war veterans and civilians who had been injured during wartime.

Dr Guttman held strong beliefs that active sport participation was a great contributor to recovery and rehabilitation.

Over time, rehabilitative sport evolved to recreational sport and then to competitive sport. In 1948 Dr. Guttman organised the first competition for wheelchair athletes and called it the Stoke Mandeville Games. Sixteen athletes competed in Archery.

In 1952 the movement was joined by injured Dutch ex-servicemen and this gave birth to the International Stoke Mandeville Games. This evolved into the Paralympic Games, first held in Rome in 1960, featuring four hundred athletes from twenty-three countries. The Summer Paralympics have been held every four years since then and the Winter Paralympics were added in 1976 in Sweden. Since the 1988 Summer Games [Seoul, Korea] and the 1992 Winter Games [Albertville, France], the Paralympics and Olympics have been held in the same cities and venues.

Over the years organisations and countries joined the Paralympic movement and other disability types and different sports were added. In 1989 the movement we know today was formally founded as the International Paralympic Committee. The IPC governs a total of twenty-eight sporting codes, covering both Summer and Winter Games.

The Classification System

The purpose of classifying athletes into different sports classes is, essentially, to ensure fair competition; to ensure that winning is determined by sporting factors such as skill, fitness, power, endurance, tactical ability and mental focus, the same factors that account for success in sport for able bodied athletes.

The system is documented in the 2015 Athlete Classification Code and Standards. Through classification it is determined which athletes are eligible to compete in a sport and how those athletes are then grouped together for competition, in order to minimise the impact of those athletes’ impairments on sport performance.

Each individual sport has its own unique classification system. Classification is sport-specific because an impairment affects the ability to perform in different sports to a different extent. As a consequence, an athlete may meet the criteria to compete in one sport, but may not meet the criteria in another sport. Just having an impairment is not necessarily sufficient for an athlete to compete in Para sport. The groupings of athletes by the degree of activity limitation resulting from their impairments are called ‘Sport Classes’. This, to a certain extent, is similar to grouping athletes by age, gender or weight. Each classification system is carefully documented and continuously reviewed.

Let’s look at Swimming as an example of classification. We can look at other sports as a follow up, as the 2024 Paralympic Games approach.

Christopher Tronco, Mexico, Para swimming, Tokyo 2020 – Joel Marklund/ OIS

Classification in Para Swimming

To be eligible to compete in Para Swimming, a person must have an eligible impairment and meet the minimum impairment criteria set out in the World Para Swimming Classification Rules and Regulations. Eligible impairments for Para Swimming are:

  1. Impaired muscle power
  2. Limb deficiency
  3. Leg length difference
  4. Short stature
  5. Hypertonia
  6. Ataxia
  7. Athetosis
  8. Impaired passive range of movement
  9. Vision impairment
  10. Intellectual impairment

Swimming classes – physical impairment

The sport class names in swimming consist of a prefix and a number. The prefixes stand for the strokes and the number indicates the sport classes.

The prefixes are:

• S: freestyle, butterfly and backstroke events. The numbers run from S1 to S10, based on the swimmer’s physical impairment

• SB: breaststroke. The numbers run from SB1 to SB9, based on the swimmer’s physical impairment

• SM: individual medley. The prefix “SM” is not a sports class, but an entry index calculated from the S and SB numbers. The same calculation applies for Vision and Intellectually impaired SM swimmers. The numbers run from SM1 to SM10, based on the swimmer’s physical impairment.

Physical impairment

There are ten different sport classes for athletes with physical impairment, numbered 1-10.

Athletes with different impairments compete against each other, because sport classes are allocated based on the impact the impairment has on swimming, rather than on the impairment itself.

To evaluate the impact of impairments on swimming, classifiers assess all functional body structures using a point system and ask the athlete to complete a water assessment.

The total number of points then determines the athlete’s S and SB sport classes. Due to the different demands of S and SB events, swimmers are often allocated different S and SB sport classes.

Vision impairment

Athletes with a vision impairment compete in three sport classes from S/SB11 to S/SB13.

S/SB11: These athletes have a very low visual acuity and/ or no light perception.

S/SB12: Athletes have a higher visual acuity than athletes competing in the S/SB11 sport class and/ or a visual field of less than 5 degrees radius.

S/SB13: Athletes have the least severe vision impairment eligible for Paralympic sport. They have the highest visual acuity and/or a visual field of less than 20 degrees radius.

In order to ensure a fair competition athletes in the S/SB11 sport class are required to wear blackened goggles.

To ensure safety all S/SB11 swimmers must use a tapper, swimmers in the S/SB12 and S/SB13 sport classes may choose whether or not they wish to use one.

Intellectual impairment

Intellectually impaired swimmers compete in class S/SB14.

S/SB 14 swimmers have an intellectual impairment, which typically leads to the athletes having difficulties with regards to pattern recognition, sequencing, and memory, or having a slower reaction time, which impact on sport performance in general. Moreover, S14 swimmers show a higher number of strokes relative to their speed than able-bodied elite swimmers.

For more info on classifications visit: https://www.paralympic.org/classification-by-sport

Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

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