At the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris, more than 4,000 athletes with physical, visual and intellectual disabilities will compete in 22 sports.

There will be 549 medal events in these 22 sports. This number seems high because several sports have multiple “sport classes” designed to provide equal opportunities for athletes with different disabilities.

Some athletes compete in classes based on their specific disability. Other classes include athletes with a range of different disabilities that result in similar levels of “activity limitations,” as the International Paralympic Committee puts it.

For example, swimmers with physical disabilities compete in categories from “S1” to “S10.” “S” stands for swimming, and the number is the sport class. The lower the number, the more severe the limitation. So class S10 can include competitors with hip disabilities, foot amputations, or cerebral palsy. They all compete in the same group because their different disabilities affect their swimming ability in similar ways.

The IPC considers this to be comparable to grouping athletes by age, gender and weight.

Despite the rigor and training that goes into the classification process, problems do arise. Sport classes can be broad, putting some participants at a disadvantage. Classification tests can be tiring or stressful for athletes. And classification errors can occur that place athletes in the wrong class.

And then there is the issue of “intentional misrepresentation.” Over the years, some athletes have exaggerated their disability to gain a competitive advantage, cheating during the classification process to improve their chances of winning against competitors with greater disabilities.

Intentional misrepresentation is considered the greatest threat to the integrity of parasports.

Build a bigger tent

As I explain in detail in my book Regulating Bodies, Ludwig Guttmann, a Jewish neurologist who left Nazi Germany shortly before the outbreak of World War II, is considered the father of the Paralympics.

Guttmann founded the National Centre for Spinal Injuries at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury, England, where he introduced an exercise programme as part of the rehabilitation process for his patients.

As Guttmann later wrote, sport was “the most natural form of physical recreation.” In addition, “it has a psychological effect by restoring the joy of life and contributing to social reintegration.”

In 1948, Guttmann organized the first Stoke Mandeville Games for paraplegics, in which 14 men and two women competed in archery. Originally, the games were reserved for wheelchair athletes. Over the years, the program was expanded to include new sports and athletes with different disabilities.

The 1976 Paralympics – then known as the Paralympics for the Physically Disabled – introduced sports for athletes with amputations and visual impairments. Four years later, athletes diagnosed with cerebral palsy were allowed to compete in the 1980 Games. In 1984, organizers introduced the “Les Autres” (French for “the others”) competitions, a category that included athletes with “movement disabilities” such as short stature, multiple sclerosis and leg length discrepancy. Athletes with intellectual disabilities – those with a documented IQ below 75 – competed for the first time in the 1996 Summer Paralympics in Atlanta.

By taking into account different types of disabilities, parasports organizers began to find ways to streamline competitions while maintaining fairness.

One solution was classification.

A careful classification process

The current IPC Athlete Classification Code describes a multi-stage classification process.

There is a panel that includes medical classifiers – usually a physical therapist, a physician, a physician assistant, or an occupational therapist. There are also technical classifiers who have expertise in the sport and may include coaches, scientists, or physical education teachers.

Before a competition, examiners first check whether the athlete meets the “minimum impairment criteria” set by the international federations of each sport. This includes reviewing medical records and detailed training and performance histories. This may also include simple assessments of height, limb differences, muscle strength and stiffness, and range of motion.

Next, classifiers perform a series of sport and disability-specific tests to determine the athlete’s sport class. Finally, they verify their decision by observing the athlete during competition. In other words, they check that they got it right and that the athlete was honest in their assessment.

Classification is crucial. “Without it,” argues Paralympian and medical anthropologist P. David Howe, “Paralympic sport could not exist.”

Outsmarting the system

Despite the accuracy of the classification process, intentional misrepresentations occur.

There are reports of athletes who overexerted themselves before classification to appear weaker than they really are. They stiffened their muscles with cold showers, threw themselves into the snow, or wrapped arms and legs in bandages that were too tight. Athletes pretended to be less coordinated or weaker, faked slower reaction times, or pretended to have worse vision.

Perhaps the most notorious case of deliberate misrepresentation involved the Spanish basketball team that won gold in the intellectual disability category at the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney.

Shortly after the Games concluded, a team member revealed that ten of the team’s twelve athletes were not actually disabled. The Spanish Association of Mentally Disabled Athletes, he explained, had deliberately signed up able-bodied athletes in order to “win medals and get more sponsors.” As a result, sports for mentally disabled athletes did not reappear on the Paralympic program until 2012.

The IPC recently stripped Indian discus thrower Vinod Kumar of his bronze medal at the 2020 Paralympics. Kumar had been assigned to class F52, which is intended for athletes in field disciplines who compete in a sitting position due to “limb defects, leg length discrepancies, limited muscle strength or limited range of motion”.

However, it was observed that Kumar competed with less impairment than he had shown during the classification process.

The IPC then banned him from participating in the sport for two years. If he commits a second offence, he faces a lifetime ban.

One rotten apple does not spoil the whole basket

It is impossible to say how often intentional misrepresentations occur, partly because proving them can be difficult.

In the run-up to the 2016 Paralympics, the IPC investigated allegations against more than 80 athletes from 24 countries in six sports. In not a single case could IPC officials find evidence of fraud beyond a reasonable doubt.

It is important to remember that most Paralympians go through the classification process with integrity. It is like any form of cheating: should the few athletes who do something outrageous bring the entire competition into disrepute?

Of course, this risk always exists. And the complex classification process also creates opportunities.

Most importantly, deliberate misrepresentation should not prevent viewers from seeing some of the best athletes in the world. The “Para” in Paralympic indicates that these sports take place “parallel” to so-called able-bodied sports.

But comparing Para athletes to “non-disabled” athletes doesn’t do them justice. Just look at a snippet of the Paralympics and you’ll see that these bodies are more than capable.

This article was adapted from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization that brings you facts and trusted analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Jaime Schultz, Penn State

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Jaime Schultz does not work for, consult for, own shares in, or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic employment.