The Para Athletics Sports Classification

There are various criteria’s that are used to categorize athletes in sports. The same does apply when it comes to sport for people with disabilities. The classification system used for para-athletics is the basis for establishing who can compete in certain sports and in what class. The classification is done by the International Paralympic Committee. Individuals with vision, physical, and intellectual disabilities are eligible to compete in para-athletics.

The classification system aims at dividing eligible athletes into sports classes with an aim of ensuring that each class consists of athletes with impairments that cause the same amount of activity limitation (International Paralympic Committee, 2016). In order for a person to be considered eligible for the para-athletics, they must have an impairment type that is considered eligible and the impairment must be considered to be severe enough that it will have an impact on the sport.

There is a classification panel that is charged with allocating an athlete to a sports class. Once allocated to a sports class an athlete does not have to remain within the class for their whole para-athletics career. There is a possibility of their impairment progressing and this would result in the reclassification of the athlete. Para-athletics classes are denoted with a number and each number has a prefix 'T' for track or 'F' for the field. Impairments for the athletes are split into groups.

For example, the visually impaired athletes are in the tens (T11-T13), athletes who have coordination impairments are in the thirties (T31-T38). The number also denotes the level of impairment. A lower number within each impairment category indicates that the impairment is more severe (DePauw & Gavron, 2005). All the athletes are categorized based on their skill level in the sport and their medical classification. In the para-athletics, there are 10 impairment types that are eligible. Eight are physical impairments.