Wheelchair sport classification is a system designed to allow fair competition between people of different disabilities, and minimize the impact of a person's specific disability on the outcome of a competition. Wheelchair sports is associated with spinal cord injuries, and includes a number of different types of disabilities including paraplegia, quadriplegia, muscular dystrophy, post-polio syndrome and spina bifida. The disability must meet minimal body function impairment requirements.Some wheelchair sports are open to people with disabilities other than spinal cord injuries. These include Impaired muscle power, Athetosis, impaired passive range of movement, Hypertonia, limb deficiency, Ataxia and leg length difference. Many of these are covered by Les Autres sports classification, Cerebral Palsy sports classification and amputee sport classification. These are discussed on those specific pages or on sport specific classification articles. Wheelchair sport and sport for people with spinal cord injuries is often based on the location of lesions on the spinal cord and their association with physical disability and functionality.
Classification for spinal cord injuries and wheelchair sport is overseen by International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Federation (IWAS). Classification for spinal cord injuries internationally is also handled on a sport specific basis, with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) being the classifier for a number of sports including alpine skiing, biathlon, cross country skiing, ice sledge hockey, powerlifting, shooting, swimming, and wheelchair dance. Classification is also handled nationally by national wheelchair sport organizations, or sport specific organizations.
Wheelchair sport classification was first experimented with by Ludwig Guttmann at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital during the 1940s, and was formalized in the 1950s. This was a medical based classification system. It was the used International Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Sports Federation (ISMWSF) at their founding in 1960, when the first International Stoke Mandeville Games were held in Rome. The 1960s, 1970s and 1980s would see a debate about the merits of the medical based system. Changes towards a functional classification system started in some sports in the late 1970s and 1980s before going wider in the early 1990s. Major changes took place in the 1990s, which facilitated the ability for people with spinal cord injuries to compete with people with different types of disabilities. These trends continued into the 2000s.
Traditionally, the classes used for IWAS have been based on track and field with these being applied for other sports. There are four classes for track and eight for track and field. These classes are known as F1, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, F7 and F8. They are comparable to sport specific classes used by other classifying bodies. The process for classification has a medical and functional classification process. This process is often sport specific.
Purpose
The purpose of classification in wheelchair sports is to allow fair competition between people with different types of disabilities. It is to minimize the importance of the type of impairment a person has on the outcome of a competition. Classification based on disabilities is at times comparable to classification systems used in other sports based on weight, age and gender in regards to its purpose as these potentially impact results.
Some wheelchair sports state variants of this in sport specific ways. In wheelchair fencing, the purpose of classification is to insure that fencers are classified based on equitable functional mobility so that their training, skill level, talent and experience determine the outcome of a match, not their disability type. This insures fairness in the sport. In wheelchair rugby, the purpose of classification is to give structure to the sport by minimizing the impact of different levels of functional disabilities on the court as it pertains to the outcome of the game.
Sports people with spinal cord injuries are generally eligible to participate in include archery, boccia, cycling, equestrian, paracanoe, paratriathlon, powerlifting, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, track and field, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair fencing, wheelchair rugby and wheelchair tennis.
Disabilities and physiology
Wheelchair sport classification includes a number of disabilities that cause problems with the spinal cord. These include paraplegia, quadriplegia, muscular dystrophy, post-polio syndrome and spina bifida. Minimal qualification for wheelchair sport is minimal body function impairment. In practice, ISMWSF has defined this as 70 points or less on the muscle group function test for people with lower limb and trunk impairments. They have no minimum disability for upper limb impairments.Tweedy, S. M. (2003). The ICF and Classification in Disability Athletics. In R. Madden, S. Bricknell, C. Sykes and L. York (Ed.), ICF Australian User Guide, Version 1.0, Disability Series (pp. 82-88)Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
The location of lesions on different vertebrae tend to be associated with disability levels and functionality issues. C5 is associated with elbow flexors. C6 is associated with wrist flexors. C7 is associated with elbow flexors. C8 is associated with finger flexors. T1 is associated with finger abductors. T6 is associated with abdominal innervation beginning. T12 and L1 are associated with abdominal innervation complete. L2 is associated with hip flexors. L3 is associated with knee extensors. L4 is associated with ankle doris flexors. L5 is associated with long toe extensors. S1 is associated with ankle plantar flexors. The location of these lesions and their association with physical disability is used with a number of medical and functional classification systems for wheelchair sports.
Governance In general, classification for spinal cord injuries and wheelchair sport is overseen by International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Federation (IWAS), having taken over this role following the 2005 merger of ISMWSF and ISOD. From the 1950s to the early 2000s, wheelchair sport classification was handled International Stoke Mandeville Games Federation (ISMGF).
Some sports have classification managed by other organizations. In the case of athletics, classification is handled by IPC Athletics. Wheelchair rugby classification has been managed by the International Wheelchair Rugby Federation since 2010. Lawn bowls is handled by International Bowls for the Disabled. Wheelchair fencing is governed by IWAS Wheelchair Fencing (IWF). The International Paralympic Committee manages classification for a number of spinal cord injury and wheelchair sports including alpine skiing, biathlon, cross country skiing, ice sledge hockey, powerlifting, shooting, swimming, and wheelchair dance. When the International Paralympic Committee evaluates an athlete and determines their classification, they ask the following three questions:
1. Does the athlete have an eligible impairment for this sport?
2. Does the athlete's eligible impairment meet the minimum disability criteria of the sport?
3. Which sport class describes the athlete's activity limitation most accurately?
Some sports specifically for people with disabilities, like race running, have two governing bodies that work together to allow different types of disabilities to participate. Race running is governed by both the CPISRA and IWAS, with IWAS handling sportspeople with spinal cord related disabilities.
Classification is also handled at the national level or at the national sport specific level. In the United States, this has been handled by Wheelchair Sports, USA (WSUSA) who managed wheelchair track, field, slalom, and long-distance events. For wheelchair basketball in Canada, classification is handled by Wheelchair Basketball Canada.
History
Ludwig Guttmann at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital began experimenting with spinal cord injury sport classification systems during the 1940s using a medical based system. His classification system was formally formalized in 1952 at the Stoke Mandeville Hospital. This system was published in the Handbook of Rules, which was distributed to people involved with paraplegic sport at the time including coaches, doctors and physiotherapists in various countries. At the time, this classification system was a medical classification. The classification system has historically been based around the one used for athletics. Guttmann was subsequently adopted by the International Stoke Mandeville Wheelchair Sports Federation (ISMWSF) at their founding in 1960, when the first International Stoke Mandeville Games were held in Rome, Italy that year. During that first decade following the first Games, people oftentimes tried to cheat classification to get in classified more favorably. The group most likely to try to cheat at classification were wheelchair basketball players with complete spinal cord injuries located at the high thoracic transection of the spine. Classification in this decade and in the 1970s, involved being examined in a supine position on an examination table, where multiple medical classifiers would often stand around the player, poke and prod their muscles with their hands and with pins. The system had no built in privacy safeguards and players being classified were not insured privacy during medical classification nor with their medical records.
Wheelchair basketball classification was underway during the 1960s. The original wheelchair basketball classification system designed in 1966 had 5 classes: A, B, C, D, S. Each class was worth so many points. A was worth 1, B and C were worth 2. D and S were worth 3 points. A team could have a maximum of 12 points on the floor. This system was the one in place for the 1968 Summer Paralympics. Class A was for T1-T9 complete. Class B was for T1-T9 incomplete. Class C was for T10-L2 complete. Class D was for T10-L2 incomplete. Class S was for Cauda equina paralysis. From 1969 to 1973, a classification system designed by Australian Dr. Bedwell was used in wheelchair basketball. This system used some muscle testing to determine which class incomplete paraplegics should be classified in. It used a point system based on the ISMGF classification system. Class IA, IB and IC were worth 1 point. Class II for people with lesions between T1-T5 and no balance were also worth 1 point. Class III for people with lesions at T6-T10 and have fair balance were worth 1 point. Class IV was for people with lesions at T11-L3 and good trunk muscles. They were worth 2 points. Class V was for people with lesions at L4 to L5 with good leg muscles. Class IV was for people with lesions at S1-S4 with good leg muscles. Class V and IV were worth 3 points. The Daniels/Worthington muscle test was used to determine who was in class V and who was class IV. Paraplegics with 61 to 80 points on this scale were not eligible. A team could have a maximum of 11 points on the floor. The system was designed to keep out people with less severe spinal cord injuries, and had no medical basis in many cases.