Sport class and sport class status overview

As the outcome of classification, every Athlete is given a SPORT CLASS and a SPORT CLASS STATUS.

The SPORT CLASS is identified as ‘a category defined by each International Federation’ in which athletes are categorized in reference to an activity limitation resulting from impairment’ (Code art. 6.1.1).

The SPORT CLASS STATUS is defined as ‘an indication of evaluation requirements and protest opportunities’ (Code art. 6.2.1).
Details on Sport Class and Sport Slass Status are described in the IPC Classification Code – International Standard for Athlete Evaluation. You should particularly look into articles 3, 8 and 10.

Each sport in the Paralympic Movement has its own sport classes. These are described in the Classification Rules for that sport. Across the Movement, sport classes are identified in different ways:

•  LETTER-NUMBER combination. This is the case in most individual sports. Examples are: S4 in swimming, T34 in athletics, LW9 in nordic skiing, BC1 in boccia, B1 in goalball.

•  LETTER SCORE. When there are only a few classes, some sports choose to identify these as ‘class A’ and ‘class B’ (e.g. wheelchair fencing) or ‘A’, ‘TA’ and ‘LTA’ (rowing).

•  NUMBER SCORE. This typically is the case in team sports. Examples are point scores in wheelchair basketball (ranging from 1 to 4) and wheelchair rugby (ranging from 0.5 to 3.5). At any given moment of time during the game a maximum number of points on the field of play is allowed (14 for wheelchair basketball, 8 for wheelchair rugby).

•  ELIGIBLE/NOT ELIGIBLE. This wording is used in sports where there is only one class. We call these sports ‘open class’ sports. IPC Ice Sledge Hockey and IPC Powerlifting are examples in this category.

For a full detail on sport class coding and definitions, refer to the specific sport classification rules.

It is important for you to know that, WITHIN one sport, an athlete holds ONE sport class, except for IPC Swimming and IPC Athletics.

In IPC Swimming the different strokes require different techniques, which may be impacted by the impairment and activity limitation (freestyle, backstroke, butterfly versus breaststroke). As a consequence, a separate sport class is given for breaststroke (SB). Because the different strokes are all used in the medley event, a sport class for medley is also given (which is ‘calculated’ on the basis of the sport class allocated in S and SB).

In IPC Athletics, the same principle applies to differentiate between track and field events. Therefore a sport class Txx and Fxx is given when the athlete competes in track or field.

An athlete can, however, hold multiple sport classes if he/she participates in more than one sport.