“The men's PT1 and PT4 sport classes have now been confirmed as two of the men's three medal events, while the women's PT4 has gained a berth in Rio.

 

"To allow for further analysis of the remaining sport classes, the IPC and ITU will continue working closely together during the summer to identify the remaining medal events.

 

"With the six medal events to be evenly split amongst genders, one additional medal event will be assigned for the men, while two medal events will be announced for the women.

 

"The IPC will make its final decision on these medal events following its board meeting in October” 

 

The ITU has reinforced their stated ambition that all five male and female Sport Classes will be represented in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. To achieve this ambition the ITU will continue to work with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), who will make the final decision post Rio 2016 of the number of medal categories in Tokyo. British Triathlon will work with the ITU to support this process to the best of their ability. 

 

British Triathlon acknowledge that this is a challenging time for athletes and has committed to fully supporting athletes across all five male and female sport classes throughout the 2014 season (until 31 October 2014). This will include the remaining ITU World Paratriathlon Events and the ITU Paratriathlon World Championships in Edmonton in August; this commitment remains the same regardless of today’s announcement by the ITU.

 

British Triathlon has been at the forefront of the development of Paratriathlon since its inception and as such are committed to continuing the development of all five sport classes.  We will work with the relevant funding partners to identify what support can be offered to athletes in the non-Paralympic Classes and will communicate this with the individual athletes when the remaining three classes are announced.

 

UK Sport has invested in the British Paratriathlon World-Class Performance Programme to deliver medal-winning performances at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. From November 2014, the World-Class Performance Programme will use the UK Sport National Lottery Funding to enhance the world-class training and competition environments for athletes in the Paralympic sport classes. Only athletes in the Paralympic sport classes will be eligible for a UK Sport Athlete Performance Award. 

 

Further details of how athletes are selected on to the British Triathlon World-Class Paratriathlon Performance Programme, will be released in due course.