Normal practice, medical and sports tests, risk of starvation… How are the athletes of the 2024 Paralympic Games classified? – Independence

2024-08-25 11:01:02

Every four years, during the Paralympic Games, the same questions arise when viewers watch the events on television: “But why does this swimmer who has two legs find himself competing against someone else who has none?” ; “How is it that this small table tennis player is playing against someone who is, by your looks, over 1.80 meters?” ; “And why aren’t there blind people in basketball, amputees in football or people with mental disabilities in practice?”

These differences, which are obvious to the novice, result from the divisions, a complex process specific to each discipline, which aims to guarantee a certain equality between athletes. “Isolation is the first competition for a Paralympic athlete”told us Arnaud Litou, senior operations manager at the National Sports Agency. Categories, exams, challenges, eating… Libe look at the big questions around customization.

Branches, what for?

During the Olympic Games, there is no problem: the fastest men and women in the world challenge each other on the sports track or in the pools, the best basketball players, football players, the handiwork of competing against each other. For the Paralympic Games, it is a different story: as the idea is to allow all people with disabilities to be able to express themselves, it is not possible to put everyone in a group at the beginning, regardless of type or degree of disability. However, people with mild disabilities will receive all the marks. So there are many categories to offer the best competition possible. The process is the same for weight categories in combat sports: having Teddy Riner, his 2.04 m and his 140 kilograms, competing against 1.60 m and 60 kg of Luka Mkheidze will not make sense.

From one sport to another, the criteria for determining these categories are different. In wheelchair tennis, you only need to have a level of damage to your lower legs, which prevents you from playing standing tennis, to participate. In sports or swimming, it is different: we group athletes according to them “levels of average activity considered to be such”, explains the French Paralympic Committee and the Sports Council, on your website. A person who has amputated several legs can therefore swim with a person who has both arms and two legs if they consider that once in the water there is no difference. “We do not make a category by the name of the disease, which will not necessarily be useful, but by the effect of the disability in the practice of sports”, Claire Delpouve explains, the doctor responsible for the medical monitoring of management within the French Association of Sports for the Disabled. Arnaud Litou concluded: “Safety is unique by nature. Separators aim to make a system which is imperfect by nature as imperfect as possible. If we want to be perfect, we will almost certainly need one department per person, but there will be no more competition.”

Are all people with disabilities represented?

Each person with a disability who wants to pursue a career must first ask themselves whether their disability is considered in a form of sport that interests them. From one discipline to another, the requirements are not the same. A blind person can under certain conditions play football or blind football, but it is not possible for them to participate in the Games in basketball or tennis, where there is no category intended for the visually impaired.

The same goes for mental disorders which are included in only three sports at the Games: gymnastics, swimming and table tennis. Regarding people with hearing impairments, they do not have a section dedicated to the Paralympic Games. A separate competition, the Deaflympics, is organized every four years (the next one will be held in Tokyo in 2025).

How are athletes with motor disabilities classified?

For people with motor disabilities, each sport has its own special code. But the principle is always the same: the athletes pass through the hands of the examiners who must, according to the specifications, assess the degree of influence of the disability in the practice of sports. “It always works in pairsFamous Baptiste Hemeryck, physiotherapist and national classifier. A person from the medical service looks at the medical file and performs table tests to assess the anatomy, coordination, muscle strength or even measure the amputated limbs to calculate the percentage lost. Another person is an expert in sports – it can be a coach, a former athlete. It examines the consequences of pathology in practice. In the water, he watches the movement, swims or even approaches it.” At the end of the test, a class is assigned to the athlete.

In zero, explains Claire Delpouve, a disabled person has 300 “work” places, maximum. Then we removed the points based on the impact the pathology had on practice. From the 15 points he lost, he qualified for the competition, in the category S10. Then, in increments of 20 to 25 points, we change the category, up to category S1 for those with 65 points or less. In sports or table tennis, the process is similar even if all the pathologies are not mixed. So there are different categories in sports for people with mental motor disabilities, who are in wheelchairs, who are amputated at the level of the upper or lower legs, again with many categories based on how can the importance of education about the effect on behavior. Obviously, the number of podiums exploded: during the Paralympic Games there will be 549 gold medals distributed, compared to 329 for the Olympics (which has ten more sports).

Athletes are then observed in competition to ensure that the category assigned to them corresponds to their disability and that their abilities and performances are the same as during the evaluation. They also take a similar test abroad when they want to participate in international competitions.

What do athletes think of these classifications?

A diagnosis of disability sometimes means disappointments. It often happens that an athlete finds himself in a category that is not favorable for him, in which he will have more difficulty to perform and reach the podiums than in others. Those who are aggrieved can often file an appeal and be reviewed by another committee. Others, on the contrary, have difficulty understanding why some athletes, who believe that they have no less serious handicap than their own, find themselves competing alongside them. Théo Curin, an aquad amputee, decided to stop swimming when he saw two swimmers with limbs arrive in his department and break the competition.

“Being a coach is a bit like being a football coach: we all have an opinion on the players we will put on the field. Obviously, sometimes we can see that unfair. The category assigned to us, or to someone else, may not correspond to what we feel, what we see, Explained Sami El Gueddari, technical director at the French Handisport Federation. But all the medical follow-up is behind it, specialists who have access to the athlete’s file. The guidelines are based on solid ingredients which are constantly reviewed and improved. The division is there to be honest, to guarantee the fairness of the world, to assess what I can do, not what I can’t do. For example, if you don’t have a disability, scientifically there is nothing stopping you from swimming [Laure ou Florent] Manaudou. After all, not everyone has Manaudou’s abilities. Here, it is the same: we can tell ourselves that we are in a category that is not ours and leave it, or tell ourselves that we can fight to improve and follow the best.

Can we fake the tests?

When we talk about the fitness of athletes, one refrain always comes up: hunger. It seems that some people intentionally reveal their flaws during the exam, in addition, they take a step to enroll in the department of their choice. It also seems that some representatives advise their athletes to do more physical exercises before a test to get more tired. The same examples of cheating come up again and again: the Dutch rider who rides in a wheelchair when he is, in fact, unable to walk; Spanish basketball players who pass themselves off as having a mental disability when most of them don’t; or the visually impaired German swimmer who is finally a nightmare after all, and who even ends up taking his driving test after his job.

For Sami El Gueddari, these rare situations are the former: “In the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, it was different, the Paralympic world was less organized and more sponsored. But today, this choice is more of a story told in the stands. The tests are thorough, we continue to watch the athlete in competition to make sure their performance matches what we saw during the test and, if in doubt, we can always review the athlete. “ Claire Delpouve confirms: “Cheating, maybe there are some who try, but there is no point in it. In table tennis, we will use force sensors to calculate striking power and weakness, in athletics or swimming we will compare times between test and competition… Cheaters end up winning.”