Para sport words · Beginner

Any sport in which people with a disability take part under classification rules that comply with the IPC Classification Code and its International Standards. A para athlete is an athlete competing in a para sport.

The major international event owned and sanctioned by the International Paralympic Committee, with summer and winter editions held in alternating cycles, in which para athletes compete in the para sports on the Paralympic Games sport programme.

The body that runs the Paralympic Movement and writes the Classification Code. It acts as the international federation for a few sports and recognises one international federation for each other para sport on the Paralympic programme.

An impairment that is permanent and falls in one of the categories the Paralympic Movement recognises. There are currently seven: five physical impairments, vision impairment and intellectual impairment. Each sport decides which of them it caters for.

One of five eligible impairments: impaired muscle power, impaired passive range of movement, limb deficiency or limb length difference, short stature, and coordination impairment. Each must be consistent with an underlying health condition that comes from the nervous system or is musculoskeletal.

Reduced or no vision caused by a condition affecting the eye, optic nerve, optic chiasm, visual pathways or the visual cortex of the brain.

The process that decides which athletes are eligible to compete in a para sport and groups the eligible ones into sport classes, by how much their impairment affects the tasks that are fundamental to the sport. The aim is that the impact of impairment is minimised and sporting excellence decides who wins.

A category for competition defined by each international federation, in which athletes are grouped by how much their eligible impairment affects the tasks fundamental to the sport. Athletes in individual sports normally compete only against others in the same sport class.

A status attached to a sport class that shows whether and when the athlete may need to be classified again. The four are confirmed (C), review at the next available opportunity (R-NAO), review with a fixed review date (R-FRD), and expired (E). An athlete who has not yet been classified is designated new (N).