Oceania Triathlon

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) hosted a classification meeting on February 19-20 in Bonn, Germany with the members of 21 different Paralympic programme sports in attendence. Thanos Nikopoulos, ITU paratriathlon liaison officer, attended the meeting as one of the representatives from seven sports that have indicated interest in joining the Paralympic movement and will be considered for inclusion in future Paralympic Games.

During the two-day session the IPC position statement on Paralympic classifications was presented for a better understanding and implementation of evidence-based classification. Other items on the agenda included assesment of code compliance along with identifying the unique challenges of each sport. On the final day a session took place between the candidate International Federations and the IPC Classification Committee on further classification matters and other challenges that have to be dealt with.

ITU Vice President Sarah Springman commented that “one of our high priority goals is to gain programme status for paratriathlon in the Rio Paralympic Games in 2016. Several International Federations are applying for inclusion so we will need to work extremely hard to fulfil the requirements of evidence-based classification through our three disciplines and the transitions between them.”

Springman added, “With the strong support of the National Federations, the paratriathlon community, the ITU Paratriathlon Committee and Executive Board, and particularly our newly-appointed IOC member and ITU President Marisol Casado, I am sure we will have a great opportunity to do so. Paratriathlon is a wonderful sport and subscribes to all of the ethics and principles of the Paralympic movement. It is also extremely televisual, with multi-talented athletes from around the world, which is a fantastic bonus. Let’s work together to give our paratriathletes the opportunity they deserve.”