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Classification Introduction

Classification of athletes becomes applicable when you begin a journey on a performance sport programme.

For British Volleyball, this is when an athlete is selected for an international competition that is run by either of our two international federations (IF’s). These federations are World ParaVolley (WPV) and ParaVolley Europe (PVE).

Currently, the classification process only occurs prior to a competition where rankings points are available, e.g. World Cup, World Championships, European Championships etc

The process:

• Prior to a major event, a nation (in our instance this is British Volleyball) must upload a medical diagnostic form onto the medical portal (only named medical practitioners can access this portal).  The medical diagnostic form must be signed by an independent doctor and details every possible issue that the athlete has,

• The IF medical team look at these documents to see what underlying issues may lead to a classifiable condition (the IPC has a list of underlying conditions that are/are not eligible for classification),

• The IF will ask for evidence e.g, scans, nerve tests etc to show evidence, of the condition,

• Based on this, the IF medical team will say if an athlete is invited to classification at the event.  If at this stage they are not satisfied about the condition, they will ask for more evidence, or tell the nation that the athlete will not be classifiable.

For further information from PVE please see the link here AntiDoping/Classification

For further information from WPV please see the link here WPV Classification

There are also online education courses that we encourage all athletes and individuals that work within sitting volleyball to go through from the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). The courses are available here