Para Category at Leadville Race Series Events
The Leadville Race Series and Life Time teams are committed to offering race opportunities for para-athletes at all of our events in 2024 and beyond. Below is a list of common impairments that categorize an athlete to compete in the para category:
- Impaired Muscle Power: The muscles in the limbs or trunk are completely or partially paralyzed as a consequence of conditions such as spinal cord injury, polio, or spina bifida.
- Impaired Passive Range of Movement: Range of movement in one or more joints is permanently reduced due to trauma, illness or congenital deficiency (e.g. conditions such as arthrogryposis or joint contracture resulting from trauma).
- Limb Deficiency: A total or partial absence of bones or joints from birth, as a consequence of trauma (e.g. traumatic amputation) or illness (e.g. amputation due to cancer).
- Ataxia: Lack of muscle coordination due to problems with the parts of the central nervous system that control movement and balance, typical of conditions such as traumatic brain injury and cerebral palsy.
- Athetosis: Repetitive and more or less continual involuntary movements caused by fluctuating muscle tone arising from problems in the central nervous system, typical of conditions such as cerebral palsy.
- Hypertonia: Abnormal increase in muscle tension with reduced ability of muscles to stretch, and joint stiffness, slowness of movement and poor postural adaptation and balance, due to problems in the central nervous system, typical of conditions such as cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, and stroke.
- Short Stature: Standing height and limb length are reduced due to conditions such as achondroplasia and osteogenesis imperfecta.
- Leg Length Difference: Minimum of 7 cm length difference due to trauma, illness, or congenital conditions.
- Vision Impairment: Vision is impacted by either an impairment of the eye structure, optical nerve/pathways or the part of the brain controlling vision (visual cortex).Intellectual
- Impairment: Limited intellectual functions and adaptive behavior which must be diagnosed before the age of 18 (e.g. autism).