Cerebral palsy sport classification
People with cerebral palsy were first included at the Paralympic Games in 1980 in Arnhem, the Netherlands at time when there were only four CP classes.
In the next few years, a CP sports specific international organization, CP-ISRA, was founded and took over the role of managing classification.
This was not without controversy as it represented a move to allow people with different types of disabilities to compete against each other, and there was pushback as a result.
The organization was founded in 1978 to assist sportspeople who have cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, stroke, or a related condition.
[6] The CP-ISRA, and its national member organizations, have historically been charged with maintaining the classification system for a number of sports including athletics, swimming, cycling and cross-country.
[10] The cerebral palsy sport classification system is designed for people with several types of paralysis and movement including quadriplegia, triplegia, diplegia, hemiplegia, monoplegia, spasticity, athetosis, and ataxia.
[1][11] Ataxia involves a lack of coordination, and an inability to engage in rapid, fine motor skills.
[14] In 1983, classification for cerebral palsy competitors was undertaken by the CP-ISRA for a variety of sports including boccia and athletics.
[17] The classification was based upon the system designed for field athletics events but used in a wider variety of sports including archery and boccia.
[18] The system was designed after consulting medical experts from two other international sport organizations, ISOD and ICPS.
For their classification system, people with spina bifida were not eligible unless they had medical evidence of loco-motor dysfunction.
People with cerebral palsy and epilepsy were eligible provided the condition did not interfere with their ability to compete.
[19] At the 1984 Summer Paralympics, the first cerebral palsy only sports were added to the program with the inclusion of CP football and boccia.
[13] At the 1992 Summer Paralympics, cerebral palsy disability types were eligible to participate for the first time, with classification being run through CP-ISRA.
[13][21][25] Swimming, athletics and table tennis used a medical based classification system for the Barcelona Games.
[2] The 1996 Summer Paralympics in Atlanta were the first ones where swimming was fully integrated based on functional disability, with classification no longer separated into classes based on the four disability types of vision impaired, cerebral palsy, amputee, and wheelchair sport.
[8] Because of issues in objectively identifying functionality that plagued the post Barcelona Games, the IPC unveiled plans to develop a new classification system in 2003.
This classification system went into effect in 2007, and defined ten different disability types that were eligible to participate on the Paralympic level.
[33] Rules for the sport require that at least one CP5 or CP6 player be on the field at any given moment, and if a team is unable to do so, they play down a man.
Rather, everyone competes in classes based on weight, with minimum and maximum disability requirements existing.
[31][9] Standing volleyball, open to people with different types of disabilities, is also similar, but is limited to only to CP7 and CP8 competitors.
[15] One of the standard means of assessing functional classification is the bench test, which is used in swimming, lawn bowls and wheelchair fencing.
[7] The second stage involves observing the footballer practicing their sport specific skills in a non-competitive setting.
In some cases, this criticism is because the result is making a sport less inclusive, with the example of wheelchair basketball being that CP2 and CP3 class competitors cannot play.
[49] Another criticism of the classification system in general, and one that is particularly relevant to CP sports given that its athletes make up the bulk of the most severely disabled ones, is that commercialization of the Paralympic movement has led to a reduction of classes in more popular sports for people with the most severe disabilities as these classes often have much higher support costs associated with them.
[3][13][22] Changes to the classification process have left some athletes unprepared and unable to compete because events for their classes have been eliminated.
One example of this involved Australian cerebral palsy athlete Hamish MacDonald who was unable to defend a gold at the 2000 Games because his classification was eliminated after the 1996 Summer Paralympics.
Hamish went to the Court of Arbitration of Sport to argue he should be allowed to compete in a wheelchair class.
[15] The classification system has also been criticized by some past Paralympians as being a tool to control and define the body.
This puts competitors with CP at a disadvantage when competing against people with amputations who do not lose coordination as a result of exertion.
