The (non)sense of the present-day classification system of sports for the disabled, regarding paralysed and amputee athletes.
In order to guarantee fair competition amongst athletes, suffering from spinal paralysis with different neurological levels, a classification-system on a medical basis was introduced at the beginning of the annual Stoke Mandeville Paraplegic Games in the 1950s. The system was set up in such a way, that athletes with comparable degrees of disability were put together in the same class, in principle not depending on the actual sporting events. Subsequently a similar system was introduced for amputee athletes, and this system is still being used. In view of the large number of competitors, the Olympic Games for the Disabled in 1980 in the Netherlands were the basis for a statistical research analysis on the acquired data, studying the results of competition in connection with the medical classification data. The following types of sports were looked at: athletics, swimming, archery and weight-lifting. The objective was, to justify the (theoretical) medical classification-system by means of (practical) actual figures (results of competition). As a basic method the 'zero-hypothesis' has been used. Specifically the 'Student's t distribution' has been used in view of the small samples. The interim conclusion is, that the present-day classification-system is good with regards to those with poliomyelitis, and to tetraplegic and paraplegic sports people both with complete or incomplete lesions competing together, but the number of classes requires to be diminished in several sports events. The same research analysis of the results of the Olympic Games for the Disabled of 1984 will be made in order to compare the two studies and to make final conclusions.
van Eijsden-Besseling
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D000328:Adult; D000674:Amputees; D006233:Persons with Disabilities; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010243:Paralysis / Q000145:classification*; D010264:Paraplegia / Q000145:classification; D011051:Poliomyelitis / Q000145:classification; D011782:Quadriplegia / Q000145:classification; D013177:Sports / Q000145:classification*; D013550:Swimming