At the Paralympics, classifications are a way for organisers to group like-with-like athletes, so people of roughly equivalent levels of impairment - or roughly equal functional ability - can compete together fairly.
Classification determines who is eligible to compete in a para sport and it groups the eligible athletes in sport classes according to their activity limitation in a certain sport.
How does classification work?
A procedure known as 'Athlete Evaluation' is used to classify athletes. Athletes are assessed and assigned a sport class and sport class status based on their level of impairment.
STEP 1: The first phase in the Athlete Evaluation procedure is to ascertain if the athlete has an eligible impairment.STEP 2: The next stage is to see if the athlete meets the sport's Minimum Impairment Criteria, which determines whether or not the impairment is severe enough for the athlete to compete in Paralympics.STEP 3: The third and last phase is defining an athlete's sports class, which lets the panel decide which class the athlete should compete in based on similar activity constraints, ensuring fair and equitable competition.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF SPORT CLASSES
There are various Sport Classes based on the level of impairment. In archery, for example, the sport class 'W1' denotes athletes who compete in a wheelchair.
There are some sports that only have one sport class and then there is athletics, which includes all 10 eligible impairments and has over 50 sport classes.
Para ice hockey and para powerlifting are among the sports that have only one sport class.
Examples of sport classes based on impairments:
Vision impairment: Sport Classes T/F11-T/F13Intellectual impairment: T20/F20Coordination impairments: F31, T32/ F32-T38/F38Short stature: T40/F40, T41/F41Limb deficiencies: T42/F42 T46/F46, T47, T/F61-64Impaired muscle power or impaired range of movement: T51-54; F51-57
