Table 2

Relationship to sports activity within Para context

Health problems may resultPara translation
1. Directly from participation in competition or training in the fundamental skills of a sport (eg, players colliding in a match, a gradual onset injury from repetitive training or transmission of a skin infection from contact with another player)

  • A vision impaired athlete sustains a lower limb fracture in alpine skiing.

  • An amputee snowboarder develops a skin infection in the residual limb.

  • A football 5-a-side player sustains a concussion through a collision with another player.

2. Indirectly from participation in activities that relate to competition or training in a sport, but not during competition or a training session (eg, slipping, falling and sustaining an injury when in the Paralympic village, developing an illness following international travel to a competition or an illness deemed to be related to an increased training load over a few weeks)

  • A vision impaired athlete falls and sustains a laceration due to an unfamiliar environment.

  • Para athlete with spinal cord injury develops a urinary tract infection after long-haul travel.

3. From activities that are not at all related to participation in sport and occur in the absence of participation during competition or training in the fundamental skills of a sport (eg, car crash, sudden cardiac arrest at home)

  • An athlete with cerebral palsy sustains an injury as a result of a seizure triggered by flickering lights in a shopping mall.

  • An athlete with spinal cord injury experiences autonomic dysreflexia due to a urinary tract infection.