Event Details

Classification in Para Sports

21 Jan 2026

13 October 2025 | National Stadium Conference Room

The National Paralympic Committee (NPC Bangladesh) successfully hosted a pivotal seminar on Classification in Para Sports at the National Stadium. This event served as a critical educational platform for athletes, coaches, and sports administrators to understand the complex framework that ensures fairness and integrity across all Paralympic disciplines.

The Backbone of Fair Play

Classification is the cornerstone of the Paralympic movement. It is the process by which athletes are grouped by the degree to which their impairment impacts their athletic performance. The primary goal is to ensure that winning is determined by an athlete’s skill, fitness, and power—not by the severity of their disability.

Highlights from the Session

Led by technical experts and medical professionals, the symposium covered the three essential steps of the Athlete Evaluation process:

  1. Eligibility: Verifying the athlete has one of the ten recognized impairment types (such as impaired muscle power, limb deficiency, or vision impairment).
  2. Minimum Impairment Criteria: Ensuring the impairment significantly affects sport-specific performance.
  3. Sport Class Allocation: Assigning athletes to a specific "Sport Class" (e.g., T11 for track athletes with total vision impairment or F57 for field athletes in seated positions) to ensure they compete against others with similar functional abilities.

Advancing Bangladesh’s Para-Athletes

With the 2025 IPC Classification Code now in effect, this session was vital for our national preparation for upcoming international events, including the Asian Youth Para Games. By aligning our national standards with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) guidelines, NPC Bangladesh remains committed to empowering our athletes to excel on the global stage through transparent and accurate classification.

 

"Proper classification is not just a rule; it is the guarantee of a level playing field for every dreamer with a disability." — NPC Bangladesh Secretariat.