PR1, W1, T51, F58, SL4, KL3, SM11.
This is not a test to crack a code.
But you will see a series of letter and number combinations while engaging with the Paralympics in Paris. At the Olympics, there is just one fastest man and one fastest woman over 100m – but in the Paralympics over that same distance, there are 16 classes for men and 13 for women, depending on their disabilities.
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This glossary will explain the method behind the different classifications, which dictate which athletes are eligible to compete in a sport and how athletes are grouped.
The letter and number combinations indicate different classifications for different sports, according to how much their impairment limits their activity (which ‘sport class’ they belong to).
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) says it is aiming to “minimise the impact of the impairment on athlete’s performance so that the sporting excellence determines which athlete or team is ultimately victorious”. Upholding the integrity of the competition is paramount for the credibility of the Paralympics.
How does it work?
First, it must be determined whether an athlete has an eligible impairment. The IPC states any athletes wishing to participate must have an “underlying health condition” which leads to a “permanent eligible impairment”.
How are the impairments categorised?
The Paralympics is open to athletes who have one of the 10 eligible impairment types. These are split into three categories: physical impairments that cause biomechanical activity limitations (impaired muscle power, impaired range of movement, limb deficiency, leg length difference, hypertonia, ataxia, athetosis and short stature), vision impairment and intellectual impairment.
Not every Paralympic sport is open to every impairment type. For example, athletics and swimming are available to all eligible impairments, whereas judo is specific to athletes with vision impairment and dressage contains a mix.
The next step is for each sport’s federation to assess if the athlete has an eligible impairment for a specific event and if they meet the minimum impairment criteria. For example, for athletes with short stature there is a height limit, or for those with limb deficiency, there is a level of amputation. An athlete may meet the criteria in one sport but not another.
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How are the sport classes decided?
Some sports, such as athletics, have more than 50 classes because they include competitors from all 10 impairment categories. Others, including powerlifting, have just one: limitation of the lower limbs or hips that stops them from standing when weightlifting. There is no single classification system that applies to all sports.
Mariana D’Andrea of Brazil during the women’s 73kg powerlifting final at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo (Zhang Cheng/Xinhua via Getty Images)
A sport class groups athletes whose activity is similarly limited and so those with different impairments may compete together because theirs may cause similar activity limitations. Athletes, for example, with paraplegia (paralysis of the legs and lower body) and leg amputations compete together in wheelchair racing.
Who decides an athlete’s sport class?
A panel of medical and technical experts — consisting of physicians, physiotherapists, coaches, sport scientists, psychologists and ophthalmologists (eye specialists) — evaluate how the athlete’s impairment(s) impact(s) on tasks integral to the sport and their individual performance.
Athletes undergo physical and technical assessments and are observed in competition before being allocated a sport class. But that classification may change over time, given the athletes’ medical condition may do the same.
What do the letters and numbers mean in each sport?
Each classification has a letter, normally the sport’s initial (for example, T for track, F for field, BC for boccia etc) and a number. Usually, the lower the number, the greater the impairment.
Different sports have different classifications.
For athletics, the numbers signify these impairments:
- 11-13: vision
- 20: intellectual
- 31-38: co-ordination
- 40-47: short stature, upper/lower limb competing with prosthesis or equivalent
- T51-54: wheelchair races
- F51-58: seated throws
- 61-64: lower limb competing with prosthesis
In swimming, S is for butterfly, backstroke and front crawl, SB indicates breaststroke and SM is for multi-swimming events. Numbers 1-10 indicate a physical impairment, 11-13 vision impairment and 14 intellectual impairment.
In wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby, each player receives an amount of points according to their impairment. The lower the number the greater the impairment and the team’s sum of on-court players cannot exceed a set number.
For blind football, all outfield players must wear eyeshades but the goalkeeper can be fully or partially sighted, whereas in goalball each player must wear an opaque mask as well as an eye patch.
France’s blind football team in training before the Games (Francois Lo Presti/AFP via Getty Images)
Judo, meanwhile, is only for visually impaired athletes who are split firstly into two classes — B1 for complete blindness and B2-3 for vision impairment — and then into weight categories.
Click here for a full breakdown of each sport.
What happens if an athlete intentionally misrepresents their classification?
They could serve a ban of up to four years for a first offence. It is an offence to deceive the classification panel during an assessment, present at an evaluation in a different way from competition or not inform the panel of a change in medical circ*mstances that may affect their sport class.
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Has that happened?
Yes, it is known as “classification doping”. To cite two examples: Spain’s men’s basketball team won gold at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics but several of their athletes posed as having intellectual disabilities. It later emerged only two of their squad of 12 had a disability.
Indian discus thrower Vinod Kumar was banned for two years and stripped of his bronze medal after he intentionally misrepresented his impairment at Tokyo 2020 (the Games were delayed a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic).
After a three-year review, in May, the IPC voted to change its classification code in a bid to maintain the integrity of classification at the Paralympics. The IPC said this will “become effective in January 2025 for all IPC members, except for international federations governing sports on the Paralympic Winter Games programme. The code is envisaged to become effective for them in July 2026”.
The statement continued, “The current classification code remains in force for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games and the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympic Winter Games.”
(Top photo: Mauro Ujetto/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Charlotte Harpur is a football writer, specialising in women's football for The Athletic UK. She has been nominated for women's sport journalist of the year and previously worked on the news desk. Prior to joining, Charlotte was a teacher. Follow Charlotte on Twitter @charlotteharpur
