Para Swimming

GMAC offers para swimming for those athletes, ages 5+, with physical, visual, and/or intellectual impairments.

• Physical impairments include amputation; dysmelia; cerebral palsy; acquired brain injury; dwarfism; spinal cord injury; polio; spina bifida, and others (major joint restrictions, coordination restriction, limb paralysis or weakness).
• Visual impairments include impairment of the eye structure, optical nerves or optical pathways, or the visual cortex, which results in reduced or zero visual perception.
• Intellectual impairments include limitations in intellectual functioning and adaptive behaviour as expressed in conceptual, social and practical adaptive skills, which originates before the age of 18.

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Classification:

A classification system provides structure to the para swimming system and to help minimise the impact of impairment on sport performance. The classification system groups eligible para swimmers in sport classes according to their functional ability within the sport of swimming.

**All swimmers with an impairment are eligible to swim at invitational swim meets without having gone through the classification process.

There are currently 14 officially recognized classifications within the Canadian swimming system:

• Swimmers with physical impairments compete in classes S1 to S10. Athletes with the highest functional ability, while still meeting the criteria to be eligible for para swimming, compete in the S10 classification, while athletes with the lowest functional ability compete in the S1 classification.
• Swimmers with visual impairments compete in classes S11, S12 or S13. S11 swimmers have very low and/or no light perception, S12’s having more clarity than the S11 class and/or a visual field of less than 10 degrees diameter and S13’s having more clarity than the S12 class and/or a visual field of less than 40 degrees diameter.
• Swimmers with intellectual impairment compete in the S14 class.

More resources​

Please reach out with inquiries to [email protected], or 519-546-9724