Eligibility rules in sport

This paper discusses the nature and values of eligibility rules in sport. It shows the relationship of eligibility rules to constitutive rules, and highlights their importance for the inclusion of different kinds of athletes. The main function of eligibility rules is to categorize of athletes and to prescribe who is and is not permitted to take part in a particular competition. We discuss various kinds of categories, such as those based on performance, bodily characteristics, and sociocultural characteristics; but we focus particularly on those categories that are based on bodily characteristics, such as age, sex, weight and dis/ability. Finally, we discuss the major principles on which eligibility procedures are founded.