Le sport pour personnes en situation de handicap, fondements et particularités. Expérience tunisienne

Sport for disabled people is relatively new in human history. In nearly 50 years, it has nevertheless drastically increased for all categories of disabilities. Under the auspices of the International Paralympic Committee and through collaboration with sports organizations for disabled people, adapted sports have become a sure, and the competition of Paralympic Games is the second world-sporting event following the Olympic games. In sports for disabled people, the classification of competitors is a basic and necessary step as soon as competition is considered. In fact, due to the diversity of the causes of deficits and the variety of resulting disabilities, a classification system allows the establishment of “functionally homogeneous groups” of individuals with similar performance capabilities who can therefore participate in the same events with fair chances of success. As in team sports, this applies to individual sports including athletics. The Tunisian experience is very interesting. The specific process at work is pragmatic because it has allowed athletes with disabilities to go up to the highest international level in a short time in athletics, which subsequently served as the locomotive for the development of other sports in the country. This also highlights the involvement of sports in the process of rehabilitation of people with disabilities.