The Paralympic Games have some very specific rules.
The Paralympic Games begin on August 28 with a ceremony that promises to be once again grandiose and open-air with a grand parade on the Champs Elysées. In order to ensure fair competition, athletes are classified into different categories based on their type and degree of disability. This classification groups together athletes with similar levels of functional ability. As indicated on the Paralympic Games website, this classification is carried out by professionals from the medical and technical world whose mission is to assess the impact of the disability on the athlete’s sporting gesture and performance. There is no common classification system for all sports.
The classification system follows a common logic:
- Letter : It is composed of one or two letters that refer to the sport, named in English. Example S for Swimming, 2 different letters in Para athletics, T for Track and F for Field and finally another example PR for Para Rowing.
In some sports, the letters can also correspond to a particularity. In badminton, the “WH1” event will refer to athletes in wheelchairs (Wheelchair). In cycling, there are also categories linked to the type of bike used. Thus the categories “H1” to “H5” group together the riders in “handbike”, or hand bike during road events.
- Figure : The second component of the classification is the number associated with these letters. The higher the number, the “weaker” the handicap and vice versa.
At the Games, athletes are divided into six categories (1-6): from visual impairment (1) to the absence of a limb (6) to intellectual disability (2). This first number is followed by a second, linked to the degree of disability, with ‘1’ being the highest.
Two numbers can accompany the letter, the ten represents the type of disability and the unit the degree of disability, while for team sports (wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby), a number of points is awarded to each player according to their disability and a total number of points for the team must be respected.