Para Rowing: The Art of Reclassification

Para-rowing is a discipline which brings together a multitude of different physical impairments into three distinct categories. As such, assigning athletes to the correct racing category is a critical part of making the sport as fair and competitive as possible.

At the 2026 World Rowing Cup III in Lucerne, there was a new competitor in the PR1 women’s single sculls – Ireland’s Katie O’Brien.

O’Brien is not new to the para-rowing scene. She was the 2023 world champion in the PR2 women’s single sculls and holds the world best time for that event, and she has competed at several world and European championships as well as the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games.

But after a failed surgery on her spinal cord last year, O’Brien has been reclassified from PR2 to PR1, and is now exploring a new dimension to the sport she loves. She is one of a small number of para-rowers to have undergone reclassification, a process that requires rigorous evidence and testing.

Life Changes

“The last 12 months have been extremely challenging for me personally, and rowing was really the last thing on my mind up until about six months ago. It was very much just get back to living my life some way normal,” O’Brien says, of the surgery and her recuperation from it.

“Rowing has always been my passion, and I tried to get back rowing, but unfortunately I was just going in circles because I’m so weak on one side now. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move the boat, and it was unbelievably frustrating to go from someone who was able to make a boat do whatever I wanted it to do to sit in a boat that wouldn’t move or wouldn’t go straight.”

Her club coach told her he thought she was no longer a PR2 athlete, and after consulting with some PR1 rowers, O’Brien decided to seek reclassification.

A similar story is told by Germany’s Marcus Klemp, albeit more often, and longer ago. Klemp, who has cerebral palsy, was classified as a ‘leg, trunk and arms’ rower (the rough equivalent of today’s PR3) in 2001. By 2009 his condition had deteriorated, and his coach suggested he reclassify as a ‘trunk and arms’ (PR2) rower. Due to lack of female partners of the same classification, Klemp continued to compete in LTA events until 2013; his first TA race was in 2014.

A few years on, Klemp was reclassified again as a PR1 rower, and is still very much part of the field.

Challenges of Reclassification

Both athletes say learning the skills of the new classification is challenging.

“Many people would think the shorter the rowing stroke, the easier it is to learn the technique, but you have to adapt more things in the boat to the rower,” explains Klemp.

O’Brien says she is picking up hints from the PR1 community and praises the others for their generosity in helping her out.

“I’ve had to change how I row because of the change in function. I just can’t do what I used to do before. But I’ve picked up so many tips and tricks from the other lads: ‘do this, do that, change your leg strap, move this, move that’,” she says.

“It makes such a difference, it’s crazy. I guess it’s just that with PR1 rowing they’re so stagnant in your one position that all those tiny little changes can make such a difference.”

Those little changes showed between O’Brien’s preliminary race and the final in Lucerne – she took almost a minute off her time, in very similar conditions.

Learning to row a new boat is one aspect of reclassification; the actual process also has its challenges.

“Sometimes, if an athlete, for instance, even if their function is getting worse or better, but there is no medical support for it, then we would not reclassify. There needs to be medical support for why that change is happening. If we ask them to present the medical documentation and there is no proof, then we would not give a reclassification,” says Rebecca Orr, chair of World Rowing’s Para-Rowing Commission.

This applies whether the reclassification is from, for example, PR2 to PR3, or PR2 to PR1.

Simon Goodey, chief classifier at 2026 World Rowing Cup III, adds that the classification panel is talking within the World Rowing coach education programme about how to identify “desirable competitive impairments” which will help make an athlete as competitive as possible within a category. Reclassification is designed to help, not hinder.

“If they’re borderline and they fall on the right side of that border they’re high performance, and if they fall on the wrong side of that border they’re not as competitive,” Orr says.

O’Brien says the hardest part of the reclassification process was ensuring she had all the necessary medical information to submit. “Once I actually came to the actual classification it was the easiest part,” she says.

Adjusting mentally can be the trickiest part of reclassification, often because it involves a change in lifestyle. Klemp admits: “It was a little bit difficult for me. It is a step away from normal rowing.”

A New Opportunity

O’Brien says it was hard to come to terms with the fact that if her application for reclassification had not been successful, her rowing career would have ended. But achieving it has been a joy.

“The race yesterday, it’s the first time I’ve done a 2k international race, and I haven’t felt that feeling since I raced in Paris 2024. It’s an unbelievable feeling; there’s nothing like it, to be given the opportunity now to do that again – whether I’m competitive or not, I don’t even care; just to be able to go out there and to row, it’s class,” she says.

“I cannot imagine giving it up and not rowing any more. I love this. I have the opportunity, and Germany has given me their trust here. It’s an honour for me still,” Klemp says, agreeing that reclassification gave him the chance to stay in the sport.

Not all reclassified rowers do stay in the sport, however, especially if they are reclassified to a category with less severe impairments.

“We’ve had so many examples of a really competitive athlete who would be winning gold medals at World Cups, and suddenly their health condition has improved to a level where their function is no longer commensurate with their sport class,” says Goodey.

In these circumstances, the athlete is reclassified, and he adds: “You don’t feel good about it as a classifier, but it was the right decision and outcome for that athlete. What is unfortunate is that they sometimes stop doing that sport, which would help their health.”

The classifiers take their roles extremely seriously and know the impact their decisions can have on someone’s life.

“The thing about classification is it’s so hard to be black and white, because there’s so many grey areas in it,” says Orr.

Helen Blamey, another classifier in Lucerne, adds: “It is a science, but it’s an art, like all of medicine is. It’s humans doing things to humans; there’s always going to be subjectivity. We try to eliminate as much of that as possible.”

But while having to be reclassified can be a result of a traumatic situation, both Klemp and O’Brien are glad they went through it, and would encourage others to talk to their fellow athletes and classifiers and take the fear away from the process.

“It’s such a positive spin to what’s such a negative change. Your disability getting worse is awful, but it’s such a positive that I can get back rowing and that I’m able to do the thing that I thought I’d lost,” O’Brien concludes.