Inas has confirmed it's working with the IPC to make Nordic skiing the first sport on the Winter Paralympic Games programme to be offered to athletes with an intellectual disability ©Inas

The International Sports Federation for Persons with Intellectual Disability (Inas) has revealed it is working with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to make Nordic skiing the first sport on the Winter Paralympic Games programme to be offered to athletes with an intellectual disability.

Intellectually disabled athletes were banned from Paralympic competition following a cheating scandal at the Sydney 2000 Summer Games, where a number of members of Spain's basketball team were discovered not to be suffering from any disability.

After nine years of campaigning from various groups involved in Para-sport, the IPC voted to reinstate intellectually disabled athletes into the Paralympic Games, allowing them to compete at London 2012.

Despite this, intellectually disabled athletes are still not represented at the Winter Paralympic Games, but Inas’ announcement suggests that could be about to change with Pyeongchang 2018 less than three years away. 

It followed the start of the 2015 Inas World Alpine and Nordic Skiing Championships in Lovsjo, Sweden, where 10 nations are competing across five days of competition.

Following an Opening Ceremony, the event begun with the men’s and women’s Alpine skiing slalom races, and the men’s 10 kilometres and women’s 5km Nordic skiing cross-country races.

Intellectually disabled Nordic skiers could be competing at future Winter Paralympic Games
Intellectually disabled Nordic skiers could be competing at future Winter Paralympic Games ©Getty Images

Austria’s Alexander Haissl clocked a winning time of 57.82sec in the men’s slalom to finish 0.22 seconds ahead of Japan’s Yoshihide Kimura and 0.54 clear of the Czech Republic’s Jakub Novák.

In the women’s equivalent event, home favourite Aurelia Hagberg took top honours with a time of 1min 5.75sec, beating nearest challengers, Turkey’s Tuba Celik and Japan’s Kayo Matsumoto, by 5.48 and 6.88 seconds respectively.

Estonia’s Hans Teearu crossed the line first in the men’s cross-country race with a time of 25:14.60, followed by Poland’s Patryk Jakiela in 27:02.90 and Japan’s Junichi Nishimura in 27:48.90.

Elena Shchukina of Russia prevailed in the women’s event, registering a time of 14:55.10 to finish 1:04.50 ahead of Poland’s Poznanska Danuta and 2:41.00 clear of Sweden’s Nelly Enmark.

A live stream of the races can be accessed by clicking here.

Results from the event can be found by clicking here.


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