It’s not that David didn’t beat Goliath, but nobody could have said that they were competing on a level playing field. In sport, competing as equals is vital if the result is not to be meaningless. And nowhere are differences between athletes greater — and the potential impact of those differences more pivotal — than in the world of disability sports.
It was to square such imbalances that the classification system that lies at the heart of the Paralympic Games was devised. Ingeniously and meticulously, it weights impairments so that athletes with differing strengths can compete as equals.
The results of this