Para Powerlifting – Classification

To ensure competition is fair and equal, all Paralympic sports have a system in place which ensures that winning is determined by skill, fitness, power, endurance, tactical ability and mental focus, the same factors that account for success in sport for able-bodied athletes. This process is called ‘classification’ and its purpose is to minimise the impact of impairments on the activity (‘sport discipline’). Having the impairment thus is not sufficient; the impact on the sport must be proved, and each in Paralympic sport, the criteria of grouping athletes by the degree of activity limitation resulting from the impairment are named ‘sport classes’.

DETERMINING ELIGIBILITY

Powerlifting is open to athletes with one or multiple of the eight eligible physical impairments, if these impairments have a certain severity that impacts on sport performance. All athletes have an impairment in their lower limbs or hips, which would prohibit them to compete in able-bodied weightlifting.

For example, athletes with a single or double amputation through or above the ankle or stiffness of the knee joint would be eligible to compete.
All eligible athletes compete in one ‘sport class’, but divided by gender and in different weight categories.

Impaired Muscle Power  Impaired Passive Range of Movement  Limb Deficiency  Leg Length Difference  Short Stature Hypertonia  Ataxia  Athetosis

Athletes with Impaired Muscle Power have a Health Condition that either reduces or eliminates their ability to voluntarily contract their muscles in order to move or to generate force. 

Examples of an Underlying Health Condition that may lead to Impaired Muscle Power include spinal cord injury (complete or incomplete, tetra-or paraplegia or paraparesis), muscular dystrophy, post-polio syndrome and spina bifida.

Athletes with Impaired Passive Range of Movement have a restriction or a lack of passive movement in one or more joints. 

Examples of an Underlying Health Condition that may lead to Impaired Passive Range of Movement include arthrogryposis and contracture resulting from chronic joint immobilisation or trauma affecting a joint.

Athletes with Limb Deficiency have total or partial absence of bones or joints as a consequence of trauma (for example traumatic amputation), illness (for example amputation due to bone cancer) or congenital limb deficiency (for example dysmelia). 

Athletes with Leg Length Difference have a difference in the length of their legs as a result of a disturbance of limb growth, or as a result of trauma. 

Athletes with Short Stature have a reduced length in the bones of the upper limbs, lower limbs and/or trunk. 

Examples of an Underlying Health Condition that may lead to Short Stature include achondroplasia, growth hormone dysfunction, and osteogenesis imperfecta.

Athletes with Hypertonia have an increase in muscle tension and a reduced ability of a muscle to stretch caused by damage to the central nervous system. 

Examples of an Underlying Health Condition that may lead to Hypertonia include cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury and stroke. 

Athletes with Ataxia have uncoordinated movements caused by damage to the central nervous system. 

Examples of an Underlying Health Condition that may lead to Ataxia include cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, stroke and multiple sclerosis.

Athletes with Athetosis have continual slow involuntary movements. 

Examples of an Underlying Health Condition that may lead to Athetosis include cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury and stroke.