Sport class

When an athlete presents for classification for the first time, he/she will have been allocated a ‘provisional’ sport class. This typically is the outcome of an assessment of the athlete at a national level. This will allow the athlete to be registered for an event and in turn will give the International Federation an initial indication of how many athletes will eventually participate in a particular event.

It is important for athletes (and coaches) to understand that this initial sport class is only a ‘temporary’ assignment.

Once assessed by an international Classification Panel (at a competition identified by the International Federation), the sport class that will be allocated to the athlete AT THAT TIME will take precedent over ANY PREVIOUS sport class allocations.

The process runs like this:

1.  After the athlete has been evaluated (via physical and technical assessments), a sport class will be allocated which will allow the athlete to be entered into the correct ‘class’ for that competition.
2.  The athlete is informed of the outcome as soon as possible after the Classification Panel has made the decision.
3.  The decision is made public at the end of the classification session.
4.  If the classification rules of the sport require ‘observation in competition’, the athlete is informed, when he/she leaves the assessment room, of when this observation will take place and of the fact that the sport class MAY change after this observation. This procedure is called ‘FIRST APPEARANCE’ (IPC Classification Code – International Standard for Athlete Evaluation – art. 9)
5.  If the classification rules of the sport do not require ‘observation in competition’, the sport class is final at that stage.

The SPORT CLASS must be one of the sport classes as defined in the classification rules. These are typically defined as ‘sport class profiles’.