PARALYMPIC AND PARA SPORTS NEWS

International Paralympic Committee (IPC) invites feedback on the first draft of a new Classification Code, due for publication in 2017.

Reigning Champions Australia, Great Britain and Spain all maintain their unbeaten records as the second group phase reaches its penultimate stage.

Paralympians and newcomers make up Irish swimmers hopeful of podium finishes at the 2014 IPC Swimming European Championships in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, from 4-10 August.

Paralympic gold medallists Jessica Long and Brad Synder will compete in the largest team the USA has sent to a major international event.

Channel 4 is set to broadcast a host of major para-sport events this summer - following the broadcaster’s unparalleled coverage of Sochi 2014, the biggest ever UK TV commitment to a Paralympic Winter Games, and two years on from its ground-breaking, BAFTA winning coverage of the 2012 Paralympic Games.

France have named a squad of 20 athletes and three guides for August’s IPC Athletics European Championships in Swansea, Great Britain, and it includes a number of world and Paralympic champions.

Italy inflicted a first defeat on the USA, as Spain, Great Britain and Australia maintain their unbeaten records at the 2014 World Wheelchair Basketball Championships.

A record number of athletes are competing from over 20 European countries at the 2014 European para-canoe Championships in Brandenburg, Germany.

The International Triathlon Union (ITU), in conjunction with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), has announced three of the six medal events that will be contested in para-triathlon’s debut at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

Bleakley, the coach of the USA’s track and field squad, earned the accolade for helping the USA to 13 medals at the 2013 IPC Athletics World Championships.