How the Paralympics Makes a Race Fair
Athletes have very different bodies and very different impairments. Classification is the quiet system that decides who competes against whom.
In most sport, fairness is straightforward: everyone runs the same distance under the same rules. Para sport has a harder question to answer. If two swimmers have completely different impairments, is a race between them actually a test of who trained harder?
Classification
The answer is a system called classification. Trained classifiers assess how much an athlete's impairment affects the specific movements that sport needs, and place them into a class with athletes affected to a similar degree. Athletes then compete within their class.
That is why event names carry codes — T44, S9, F46 and so on. The letter says the discipline, such as T for track or F for field. The number says the class.