Disabled person here (spina bifida). I was a wheelchair track/field/road racing athlete around the turn of the 90's, when I was a teen. Juniors only program, so I have no clue how one qualifies in racing or any other sport in the actual Paras, but I did represent the USA once, in track and field at the Junior World Wheelchair Games (or whatever the exact title was) in Miami in 1989.
But gymnastics I have no clue about. I'm sure I've seen in in the Special Olympics, but that's usually been a different beast, because you have been required to have a cognitive impairment of some sort.
I didn't watch this year's Paralympics because I'm sick of the coverage of disabled sport as some kind of "inspiration porn", and I just assumed the coverage would be insufferable in that way. But in retrospect, I realize I could have just muted it and watched while listening to Sea Power or New Order or something else on my Spotify. So I'll need to watch whatever feeds are still up belatedly.
But, back to Special Olympics, I thought I heard that the IOPC was creating new classes for cognitive disabilities, but maybe I misheard or maybe that person misheard. Anybody know?
As for physical disability classes, I have never seen any of that, but imagine it could be adapted for sight and/or hearing impaired classes, or amputee pretty readily. I really do need to read up on disability classification, though, because I only come from the perspective of a teenage junior wheelchair athlete of the late 80's/very early 90's. It seems like the disability world has gotten to be much more complicated and diverse.
