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British Paralympic Association

The British Paralympic Association (BPA) is a registered charity which is responsible for selecting, preparing, entering, funding and managing Britain’ s teams at the Paralympic Games and Paralympic Winter Games.

The Paralympic Games take place once every four years (with a Winter Games two years after each summer edition of the Games) in the same city and year as the Olympic Games.

They are an elite multi-sport event for athletes with a disability and are a direct “parallel” to the Olympic Games – hence the name.

The BPA was established in 1989.

Classification

This is the method by which athletes are grouped in their sport and in their events to ensure that they compete fairly against other athletes with a similar degree of disability.

This was originally based on medical opinion only but is now evaluated on an athlete’s functional ability.

In the past, Paralympic competition has been organised within disability groups, e.g. amputees competing against amputees and spinal cord injured competing against other spinal cord injured – all classified (within their disability groups) according to the severity of their disability.

In Barcelona, athletes from all the locomotor disability groups competed – for the first time – against each other, with classes of competitions based on functional ability rather than clinical disability.

Visually impaired athletes will continue to compete separately in three classes, B1 blind, B2 partially sighted and B3 visually impaired.

To be considered eligible for the Games, athletes with a learning disability must have medical confirmation that their IQ rating is 75 or less and they too compete only against athletes in their own disability group.

Most competitors will have been classified many times before they even reach a Paralympic venue, and several days are set aside at the beginning of each Paralympics for further classification checks by an international panel of experienced classifiers.

These efforts endeavour to create a level playing field.

The current Paralympic summer sports are:

• Archery
• Athletics
• Boccia
• Cycling
• Equestrian
• Fencing
• Football
• Goalball
• Judo
• Powerlifting
• Sailing
• Shooting
• Standing Volleyball
• Swimming
• Table Tennis
• Tennis
• Wheelchair Basketball
• Wheelchair Rugby

The current Paralympic Winter Sports are:

• Alpine Skiing
• Biathlon
• Cross Country
• Sledge Hockey

British Paralympic Association
40 Bernard Street,
London WC1N 1ST
Tel: 020 7211 5222
Fax: 020 7211 5233

www.paralympics.org.uk

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