The decision, which will be taken at the IPC General Assembly in Kuala Lumpur on November 21-22 will be largely based on the IPC Classification Code, a system that sets eligibility criteria and ensures that an athlete's impairment is relevant to sport performance, minimizing the impact of the impairment on the outcome of competition.

It was this criterion that guided the development of a framework for "Classification" of ID Athletes by the IPC-INAS-FID (International Sports Federation for Persons with an Intellectual Disability) Working Group.

The group, with representatives from both the IPC and INAS-FID as well as sports scientists appointed by the two, was given a mandate by the IPC Governing Board and INAS-FID Executive Committee in 2007.

The mandate was: "to appraise the present position, consider the options and make recommendations that, taken together, may ensure the re-inclusion of athletes with intellectual disability in the London 2012 Paralympic Games and beyond. An effective sport input needs to be ensured throughout the process."

The IPC suspended the intellectually disabled categories after a member of the victorious Spain basketball team in Sydney 2000 admitted that only two of the squad of 12 were mentally handicapped with IQs under the qualifying level of 75.

It emerged that some members of the all-conquering team were engineers and holders of university degrees.

The category had only made its Paralympic debut in Atlanta in 1996.

Athletes with an intellectual impairment are challenged by limitations in the cognitive or intellectual functioning area and therefore, an assessment of cognition in relationship to sport demands is needed to set criteria for inclusion in Paralympic Sport. 

"Classification" of ID athletes therefore focuses on a series of tests for the specific components and if needed, these tests should be ‘tailored’ to the sport-specific needs and demands.

This July, after a long series of highly specialised research, a large-scale research project to assess the tools and procedures developed was conducted at the 2009 INAS-FID Global Games in Liberec, Czech Republic.

The research project was conducted by 35 researchers representing five partnering universities and centres. 

It aimed to test the standardisation of instruments and test instructions as well as to assess the relationship between the tests and the demands of the sport.

For this purpose, data have been collected from competitions and from mental skill sets and athletic career history.  

It will be the in-depth understanding of all these component relationships that will allow for the further development and fine-tuning of the ID athlete classification system. 

This translation in practice is subject to the decision of the IPC Membership at the IPC General Assembly on the motion for re-inclusion of ID athletes in IPC sanctioned events and competitions, including the Paralympic Games in London. 

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