Necessary and sometimes controversial: Every top athlete with a disability at the Winter Paralympics in Italy (March 6–16) is classified into a specific class. The classification is intended to maximize the comparability of individual performances and to regulate the fields of competitors in the 79 events.
“In classification, two people work together: usually one with a medical background such as a doctor or physiotherapist and one with technical experience in the respective sport,” says Winnie Timans. She is responsible in the German Disabled Sports Association (DBS) for classification as well as anti-doping. Timans reports that for athletes with visual impairments, for example, an experienced ophthalmologist is always part of the team. Comprehensive medical documents are reviewed and for athletes with a physical disability, an observation during competition can also be part of the classification.
After the examination by the independent two-person panel, athletes receive, in addition to their classification, a status that enables them to participate in international competitions. Either “Confirmed” (Approved) – this designation is permanent; or “Review” (Review) tied to a year – then the classification must be repeated at a specified time. The international federations are responsible for classifications – for example, in skiing and snowboarding disciplines the International Ski Federation (FIS).
Participants have been classified in Italy long before the Winter Paralympics. “Directly at the Paralympics there are no classifications anymore,” Timans reveals. This happened last time at the Corona Paralympics 2021 in Tokyo – and in the past has caused disagreements from time to time. “One must trust the classification according to the rulebook, after all it is handled by trained personnel,” says Timans. She does not want to rule out that there may have been an unfair classification in one case or another, but overall the system is coherent.
Russian Athletes
There is uncertainty in the scene about the classification of Russian athletes at the Paralympics, who have only recently been allowed back into international competitions and may even start in Italy under their own flag. “To my knowledge, all Russian athletes with a physical impairment should have been classified before the ban that followed the start of the Ukraine war and hold a valid status, since they could not participate in competitions with classification. Athletes with visual impairments still had the possibility of being classified, because they can be classified outside competitions,” Timans says.
A fair classification is the prerequisite for fair competition. In the ski disciplines – Alpine, Nordic, Biathlon – there is, depending on the degree of disability, a factor by which the time runs during the competition. “The heavier the disability, the slower the time runs,” Timans explains. In skiing there are only three start classifications: seated, standing, and visually impaired. In these three areas, people with different degrees of disability compete against each other.
In Para-Snowboard, represented at the Paralympics for the first time in 2014, only winter sport athletes with impairments of the lower and upper limbs may compete against each other. They are classified into three different start classes. In Para-Hockey and in wheelchair curling, all athletes start in one class. The minimum criterion for eligibility is impairment of the legs; visually impaired people are not allowed, just as in snowboarding.
In wheelchair curling, the sport – as the name already suggests – must be practiced from a wheelchair. In the fast-paced sled hockey, the athletes sit in a specialist sled.
