• Information
• Sports
• Disciplines
• Event Genders
• Event Types
• Classes
• Class Combinations
• Age Groups
• Events
• Event Phases & Units
• Countries

What are the IPC Common Codes?

Sports data management requires standardisation of the underlying information and data to be stored and shared across the clients. On the one hand, it is about how a specific entity is named/labelled. These names often follow the regulations of the related international federation (IF), usually in English, and can be found in this collection. However, different languages, spellings, ways of punctuation and displaying numerals would always challenge a consistent way of transferring related data, e.g. results. Hence, each entity must be represented by a unique code inside this entity table that is agreed across all stakeholder. Finally, a combination of codes can be used to represent larger entity tables.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) eventually follows some standards that already exists for several years for the Paralympic & Olympic Games (and other events in the meantime) that is summarised under the term of the Olympic Data Feed (ODF). ODF does not only define the codes for each Games edition but also the message structure of how sports information like results are formatted for transmission.
Beyond the scope of the Paralympic & Olympic Games, the IPC has defined further codes for the usage of the World Para Sports, in particular considering the additional complexity of their classification systems. The IPC Common Codes are thus the collection of sport data codes for the Paralympic Movement derived from existing systems and IF-related requirements. The tables published here just show a subset of all IPC Common Codes defined while other entity tables are for internal use across the various Sport Data Management Systems (SDMS) the IPC has developed.

How to use this service?

The relevant codes are grouped by entity table and list in the left bar menu. Click any item to open the table with all codes defined. The text boxes underneath the table's header line enables some filters to specifically search for a subset of data. Most of text filters use the 'contains' method, e.g. "100 m" would find the 100 m event type in athletics, but also all 100 m swimming styles or the 4x100 m relays. Data can be downloaded, currently in Excel only, through the 'Grid Export' button underneath each table. The sheet will contain all data after filtering, but from all pages, not only the currently visible. Some tables might have additional columns available that can be accessed through the table icon in the table's footer.

DISCLAIMER: No guarantee for the accuracy and consistency of the available data. The IPC seeks to standardise all codes, but in particular sub-tables for non-Paralympic sports might undergo further reviews to better match the sport regulations and classification systems. The published tables also reflect only the codes currently in use; historical codes (e.g. obsolete classification systems, events, etc) are partially excluded.

Sport entity tables relationship

The following schema reflects the relationship between the different sport entity tables; most of them can be viewed and downloaded. The focus of this schema is set to the results management, meaning how Result System Codes (RSCs) are used to uniquely identify a particular race or match inside a (medal) event inside a specific competition/Games. These are the competition event units, e.g. Athletics Men's 100 m T12 Round 1 Heat 2 at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

Result System Codes (RSC)

A specific subset of codes refer to the unique identification of an event unit in a competition. The current format the IPC is using internally for their own sports is based on the first version of ODF, with an extension for a more flexible system regarding class combinations. The event codes at the Paralympic & Olympic Games now have a fixed length of 34 characters (previously: 9); the length of the IPC event codes without the competition code prefix is 17 and defined as follows:

whereas the codes represent specific entity tables:

• DD: The alphanumeric discipline code, e.g. AT for athletics or IH for ice hockey,
• G: The alphabetical event gender code, e.g. W for women or X for mixed,
• EEE: The alphanumeric event type code, e.g. F50 for 50 m Freestyle or DHI for downhill,
• CCCCC: The numeric class combinations, see below,
• AAA: The numeric age group code, e.g. 170 for Under 18 (U18),
• P: The alphanumeric event phase code, e.g. F for the final round,
• UU: The alphanumeric event unit code, e.g. 02 for the second heat.

Example:

Finally, each event unit and its associated results can be identified by prefixing the relevant unique competition code. The IPC calendar defines codes for all sanctioned and all World Para Sports recognised competitions since 2009 (launch of IPC SDMS). Each code is fixed to six (6) characters, e.g. PG2016 for the Paralympic Games 2016.

The class combination generator has been developed by the IPC in 2008 and intends to create legible codes like all other codes intend to. The following combination from the example above shall visualise the generator:

Notes:

• The counter only depends on the order of class combination creation and has generally no further meaning.
• There are some general approaches for the interpretation of which classes are exactly combined, however this does not apply for all combinations. It is absolutely necessary to download the newest class combination list. Generally, the approaches are as follows:
  • XX010 reflects the single class XX as only eligible class
  • XX020 reflects class XX with class XX-1 as additional eligible class
  • XX030 reflects class XX with classes XX-1 and XX-2 as additional eligible classes
  • XXYY0 usually reflects the S classes in swimming
  • XXYY1 usually reflects the SB classes in swimming
  • XXYY2 usually reflects the SM classes in swimming
• Sports without classes (powerlifting, Para ice hockey) have generic class combi codes 00000.
• Sports with non-numerical classes use an internal integer system for each class that in return can eventually generate class combination codes for the RSCs.