S8, SB7, SM8 are disability swimming classifications used for categorising swimmers based on their level of disability.

History

The classification was created by the International Paralympic Committee

International Paralympic Committee

The International Paralympic Committee is an international non-profit organisation and the global governing body for the Paralympic Movement. The IPC organizes the Paralympic Games and functions as the international federation for nine sports...

  and has roots in a 2003 attempt to address "the overall objective to support and co-ordinate the ongoing development of accurate, reliable, consistent and credible sport focused classification systems and their implementation."

Sport

This classification is for swimming

Swimming (sport)

Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...

. In the classification title, S represents Freestyle, Backstroke and Butterfly strokes. SB means breaststroke. SM means individual medley. Jane Buckley, writing for the Sporting Wheelies, describes the swimmers in this classification as having: "full use of their arms and trunk with some leg function; Swimmers with coordination problems mainly in the lower limbs; Both legs amputated just above or just below the knee; Single above elbow amputation."

Competitions

For this classification, organisers of the Paralympic Games have the option of including the following events on the Paralympic programme: 50m and 100m Freestyle, 400m Freestyle, 100m Backstroke, 100m Butterfly, 100m Breaststroke, and 200m Individual Medley events.

Paralympic records

The table below records the fastest ever Parlaympic record in this class for specific events.
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!style="width:12em"|Event
!Class
!style="width:4em" class="unsortable"|Time
!
!Name
!Nation
!style="width:10em"|Date
!Games
!style="width:2em" class="unsortable"|Ref
|-

Records

In the S8 50 m Freestyle Long Course, the men's world record is held by China's Xiaofu Wang with a time of 00:26.45 and the women's world record is held by China's Shengnan Jiang with a time of 00:30.85. In the S8 100 m Freestyle Long Course, the men's world record is held by Australia's Peter Leek

Peter Leek

Peter Leek is a disabled swimmer from Australia. He competed in the 2010 IPC Swimming World Championships, held in Eindhoven, Netherlands where he won six gold medals and one silver medal. One of the medals was in the men's 4x100m freestyle relay event. Leek's medals helped Australia's national...

 and the women's world record is held by the American Jessica Long

Jessica Long

-Early life:Long was born in Siberia and was adopted from a Russian orphanage at the age of 13 months. Because of lower leg anomalies , her legs were amputated when she was 18 months old. She learned to walk with prostheses. Long has been involved in many sports including gymnastics, cheerleading,...

.

Getting classified

In Australia, to be classified in this category, athletes contact the Australian Paralympic Committee

Australian Paralympic Committee

The Australian Paralympic Committee is the National Paralympic Committee in Australia for the Paralympic Games movement. It oversees the means by which Australia participates at the Summer Paralympics and the Winter Paralympics.-History:...

 or their state swimming governing body. In the United States, classification is handled by the United States Paralympic Committee on a national level. The classification test has three components: "a bench test, a water test, observation during competition." American swimmers are assesed by four people: a medical classified, two general classified and a technical classifier.

Competitors

Swimmers who have competed in this classification include Amanda Everlove Sean Fraser

Sean Fraser

Sean Fraser is a former Canadian soccer player who currently coaches Paris Danger Soccer Club.-Career:...

 and Heather Frederiksen

Heather Frederiksen

Heather Frederiksen is a British swimmer. She competed at the 2008 Paralympics where she won four medals.-Injury:...

 who all won medals in their class at the 2008 Paralympics

Swimming at the 2008 Summer Paralympics

The swimming events of the 2008 Summer Paralympics were held in the Beijing National Aquatics Center between September 7 and September 15, 2008. A total of 140 gold medals were expected to be distributed.-Classifications:...

.

American swimmers who have been classified by the United States Paralympic Committee as being in this class include Charles Albert, Jon Arlin, Kevin Pannell and Megan Patrick.

See also

• Swimming at the Summer Paralympics
  Swimming at the Summer Paralympics
  Swimming has been contested at every Summer Paralympics. At the first games, the 1960 Paralympics, 62 swimming events were held in distances of 25 and 50 metres, plus a 3×50 metre relay for men. Since then, swimming at the Paralympics has grown to 140 events covering distances from 50 to 400...
  
  
• Swimming at the 2008 Summer Paralympics – Men's 100 metre butterfly S8