Disabilities In Volleyball

Sitting volleyball is an official Paralympic sport, with women and men competing at the Paralympic games, since Arnhem in 1980 (Sitting Teams, 2018). The rules for sitting volleyball is based of the rules for able-bodied volleyball with a few adaptations. These adaptations include: a smaller court (10m x 6m) and a lower net (1.15m for men and 1.05 for women) and a portion of the athlete’s glutes must be in contact with the ground at all times while playing the ball. These adaptations are great for people that have an amputated leg, or a disfunction in their leg. However, this sport can also be played with other disabilities too, as there can be two players on each team that have an impairment that appears minimal but prevents them from competing

All the events are similar to able-bodied swimming, such as: butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, individual medley, and relays. Depending on the disability, the sport is uniquely adapted to meet the proper adaptation to allow all people to compete in a fair and equal playing field. The one key difference however, is the use of classification systems within Paralympic sports to group athletes with similar disabilities together (Oh, 2013). Certain competitors may start the race by standing on a platform, then diving into the pool, or may even start the race in the water. For populations that are blind or partially sighted can have people called “tappers” that can stand at the end of the pool and use a pole to tap the swimmers as they approach the wall, which is their stimulus they interpret when they need to make a turn or finish the race. (Oh, 2013) Para-swimming is one of the most unique Paralympic sports, as it offers multiple versions of the sport within the same Paralympic

(Cavedon, 2015) Wheelchair basketball is very similar to the able-bodied version, with a few adaptations. The central focus of the game is the same, where there are five players on each team, must dribble the ball to move up the court and can possess the ball for just 24 seconds before shooting either a two point or three-point field goal on a standard ten-foot hoop. Just a few slight modifications are made, as all players must be in a wheelchair the entire time, and the players are not allowed to touch the playing surface with any part of their legs while in possession of the ball. These miniscule adaptations have made this a world-wide known