Athletes from around the world are in Paris for the 2024 Paralympic Games. The Games will feature more than 4,000 athletes with various disabilities competing in 549 medal events. To ensure all athletes have a fair and equitable chance at achieving success at the Paralympics, organizers use a classification system that seeks to minimize the impact a person’s disability has on their performance.
Ideally, classification means that, rather than having to change the rules of the event for each competitor, the Games themselves account for the unique ways people with disabilities run, jump, throw and otherwise compete. In athletics, for example, athletes compete across standard distances (100 metres, 200 metres, etc.), but only against those whose impairments affect them in similar ways.
In team sports, like wheelchair rugby or basketball, athletes with different types and levels of impairment compete alongside and against one another. To ensure team competitions remain fair, athletes’ individual impairment levels are considered when deciding who will be on the field of play at any given time. Teams can therefore be comprised of athletes with more and less severe impairments, so long as each team as a whole is similarly able.
However, while the concept of classification is relatively straightforward, the process of getting classified can be anything but. And for some athletes, it can itself be damaging. The classification process To become classified, athletes must compile medi.