Paralympic gold medalist banned for life – as she's not actually blind

Daily Mirror

17-05-2025

Not too long ago the sporting world was celebrating her achievement, but Paralympian Shahana Hajiyeva has now been banned for life from competing in her previous categories
A Paralympic gold medallist has been banned for life from their category after failing a disability classification test. Shahana Hajiyeva, who was a member of the Azerbaijani Paralympic team, won gold at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.
However, recent reports have claimed that she has since been banned from competing in her previous categories, after failing a medical classification test. The 25-year-old athlete won gold in Japan in the 48kg judo event, while also winning gold in the 48kg J2 category at the 2023 European Para Championships.
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She did not participate in the recent 2024 Olympics in Paris, but was due to be in Astana, Kazakhstan for the World Parajudo Championships.
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According to Prosport.az, she was deemed to have failed a medical classification test for the partially sighted judokas, before the competition in Kazakhstan. It determined that she did not have any vision restrictions that would prevent her from competing in Parajudo competitions for the visually impaired, resulting in her being given a lifelong ban from her original category.
A similar incident also took place in the blind J1 category as similar tests showed that Elnara Nizamli had partial vision. She was moved down to the J2 category.
In a statement released to Azerisport.com, the National Paralympic Committee of Azerbaijan claimed the new classification systems have caused the situation.
They said: "The categories B1, B2 and B3, in which parajudo competitions were held at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Paralympic Games, were reduced in the period leading up to and at the Paris 2024 Games and combined into two categories - J1 and J2.
"As a result of these changes, many ophthalmogical diagnoses were excluded from the list of acceptable diseases for the J2 category. For this reason, the International Blind Sports Association (IBSA) re-submitted our parajudokas for medical classification.
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"Despite the fact that the winner of Tokyo 2020, Shahana Gadzhieva [Hajiyeva], represented our country in parajudo in the J2 category until 2024, due to these changes, it became clear that she will no longer be able to compete in parajudo.
"The National Paralympic Committee is taking all the necessary steps to adapt to the new requirements of medical classification."
It's not the first time the change in classification system has been criticised. According to a report from The Guardian in 2020, as many as one in 10 visually impaired athletes in the UK were vulnerable to falling into the B4 category, which was described as "a level recognised by British Blind Sport but not by the Paralympic movement" and one that is "outside the criteria defined by the International Blind Sport Association".
At the time, Karina Lang, who had represented Team GB in goalball but was reclassified as B4 thus making her ineligible to compete at the Paralympics, said: "It crushes you because you've spent your entire life trying to find somewhere that you fit in and then you do, you get quite good at it and you're told: no, you don't fit in here any more.
'Paralympics is about being inclusive. It's such an amazing movement and I was proud to be part of it. But it just feels like this classification system is outdated now and something needs to happen. It needs to be looked at, to say: 'Actually there is this big group of people we're missing out. How can we include those people?''