Para-Olympics Day 1.

With only 11 days to fit every thing in the parallel Olympics have got off to a flying start with 88 medals awarded today. TeamGB managed 7 medals in total made up of 2 Gold, 3 Silver and 2 Bronze. The Golds went to Sarah Storey in the C5 2km individual track cycling pursuit and to Jonathan Fox in the S7 100m backstroke swimming race. The Silvers went to Mark Colbourne in the C1-2-3 track cycling time trial, Nyree Kindred in the S6 100m backstroke swimming and Hannah Russell in the S12 400m freestyle swimming. The Bronzes went to Ben Quilter in the mens under 60kg Judo and Zoe Newson in the under 40kg weightlifting.

So it seems like an appropriate time to talk about the para-Olympic's classification system. Although the para-Olympics is for disabled athletes obviously not everyone has the same disability so there is a classification system to determine who has what disability and to what degree. Just to make things that little bit more complicated there are actually several classification systems. However the main one which is used in track, field and swimming events and provides the basis for the other systems involves giving each competitor a three digit classification code e.g "T44." The letter indicates the event T for Track, F for field, S for Swimming etc. The first number indicates which one of five types of disability the competitor suffers from;

1 = Visually impaired ranging legal blindness to a complete lack of sight.
2 = Intellectual disability which is an impairment of intellectual function such as learning difficulties
3 = Cerebral Palsy which actually includes any form of non-progressive brain damage, traumatic brain injury or just cerebral palsy.
4 = Amputee which includes anyone who has lost the use of one or more limbs including people who have the limb missing.
5 = Wheelchair which includes anyone with any sort of injury that means they must compete from a Wheelchair but generally means people with spinal injuries.

There is also a sixth category known as "the others" which covers all the disabilities such as Dwarfism and MS that don't fit into any of the other categories but being such a broad category "the others" have their impairment assessed on a case by case basis.

The second number indicates the severity of the impairment and the range of these numbers varies from disability to disability with amputees ranging 6 to 0. The lower the number is the more severe the impairment. Therefore T44 would refer to a track athlete who has moderate impairment of their limbs. Deciding on the severity of the impairment is a qualitative decision made by designated "classifiers" throughout the competition and is also highly controversial with assessors often disagreeing and competitors gaining an advantage by being classified as more impaired then they actually are. The classification process is actually very similar to the controversial work capacity assessment that the British government has recently brought in to assess people for disability benefits. However it's quite clear that ATOS the company that does the work capacity assessment isn't doing the classification for the para-Olympics because at least 88 people have been found to be disabled.

Obviously it's not really practical to have events made up of competitors with exactly the same disability and level of impairment. So in order to have competitors with differing disabilities and impairment to compete against each organisers use something called "Raza" which is a complex algorithm which mathematically balances out the differing levels of impairment. This is why the events often only have a two digit designation such a "S5" refering only to the event and the level of impairment and why you may often find that the person who looks like they've finished first actually hasn't.

So yes that's the para-Olympics; definitely more sciencey, technical and nerdy then the Olympics. If you want more information about how the classification system works this is really the best I could find; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/paralympic-sport/9494025/Paralympics-2012-classifications-explained.html

Also I've decided that as it's more then likely I won't be going to the gym tomorrow I'll try and use the time to fully write up the opening ceremony although I won't publish it until after the days events have finished.

23:00 on 30/8/12.