What is para swimming?
B · Beginner · Classes and events · 1 of 2Para swimming is freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and medley for swimmers with an eligible impairment, under World Para Swimming, part of the IPC. Swimmers race within sport classes. The stroke rules follow swimming but allow set exceptions for each swimmer's impairment, and blind swimmers are tapped at each wall.
How it works
- Governing body: World Para Swimming, run by the IPC.
- Strokes: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, medley.
- Classes: S, SB and SM numbers by stroke and impairment.
- Exceptions: set rule changes recorded for each swimmer.
- Vision classes: tapping at turns and finishes.
- No prostheses: swimmers race without them.
- Pools: long course 50 m, short course 25 m.
- Open water: 1.5 km, 3 km and 5 km races.
The glossary has the para swimming, the World Para Swimming, the S, SB and SM class codes, the codes of exception, the tapper and the long course and short course.
Tricky cases
Can a swimmer wear an artificial leg?
No. Prostheses and orthoses are not allowed, except an eye prosthesis.
Are men and women ever in the same race?
Individual races are always separate; mixed relays have two of each.
Is standing on the bottom a disqualification?
Not in freestyle, but the swimmer may not walk.
Who decides a swimmer's exceptions?
The classification panel, during the water test.
Why the rule exists
Classes group swimmers whose impairment limits them in a similar way. Exceptions let each swimmer race legally with the body they have.
Where it differs
| Where | What changes | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Physical classes | S1 to S10 | CR |
| Vision classes | S11 to S13, tapping | CR, 10.8.3 |
| Intellectual class | S14 | CR |
From the rule book
World Para Swimming, Rules and Regulations, February 2026, sections 10.4, 11.2.4, 11.8.1 and 11.8.9, with World Para Swimming, Classification Rules and Regulations, August 2022. Checked 14 October 2026. Official document: the World Para Swimming Rules and Regulations, February 2026.