Para-Rowers are classified into one of three categories depending on their disability:
- PR3 (formerly LTA) – rowers with a verifiable and permanent impairment who have functional use of their legs, trunk and arms for rowing and who can use a sliding seat to propel the boat, eg. the impairment may typically be amputee, Cerebral Palsy, vision impairment, or intellectual impairment.
- PR2 (formerly TA) – rowers with a verifiable and permanent impairment who have functional use of the trunk but are unable to use the sliding seat to propel the boat because of significantly weakened function or mobility of the lower limbs. eg bilateral around knee amputation, significantly impaired quadriceps, Cerebral Palsy, paraplegia
- PR1 (formerly AS) – rowers with a verifiable and permanent impairment who have minimal or no trunk function eg. Cerebral Palsy or paraplegia.
Rowing Australia Para-Rowing and Rowing NSW are continually directing interested persons to the Program. The Program has, at the request of Rowing Australia and Rowing NSW, held “Try Rowing’ days for persons with disabilities, making contact with disability organisations eg Vision Australia, Cerebral Palsy Association, returned servicemen.
Those participants who wish to compete in regattas are able to do so in the various local club regattas and Championship regattas organised by Rowing NSW and held on Iron Cove or at SIRC. Races are currently organised by disability classification ie PR3, PR2 and PR1. The highest level of competition takes place at the Australian National championships organised by Rowing Australia and drawing international as well as Australian crews. At certain local club and State regattas composite crews are permitted to race ie the crew is made up of rowers with the same disability, from different clubs and/or States.
The Program is very active in encouraging interstate rowers to join with rowers from NSW to compete in the NSW State Championship regattas. The PR3 crew training for the 2016 NSW State Championship regatta comprised two rowers from NSW, one from WA and one from Tasmania. The Program provided financial support to bring the interstate rowers to Sydney to train for this regatta.
Coaching is undertaken by three volunteer coaches all of whom have a long and successful association with the sport of rowing and teaching young people the art and skills of rowing. All have achieved Level 2 or 3 NCAS coach accreditation.