Sapporo is aiming to stage the Winter Paralympics in 2030 after Tokyo played host to the Summer Games last year ©Getty Images

Japanese officials have called for athletes with an intellectual disability to be given opportunities to compete at the Winter Paralympics as the nation aims to stage the Games in 2030.

Sapporo is bidding to stage the Games in eight years’ time and Toshiyuki Saito, head of the All Nippon ID Sport Association (ANISA), hopes intellectually disabled athletes will have chances to challenge for Paralympic medals by then.

An intellectual disability classification was part of the cross-country skiing competition at Nagano 1998 - when Japan last staged the Winter Paralympics - with Japanese athlete Hiroki Shinohara securing men’s 20 kilometres bronze.

A cheating scandal at the Sydney 2020 Summer Paralympics resulted in the removal of all intellectual disability events from the Games for Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008.

Spain was stripped of the gold medal they won at Sydney 2000 after it emerged players had pretended to be intellectually disabled when they were not.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) voted in 2009 to reinstate intellectually disabled athletes into the Paralympic Games.

Since then, they have competed in athletics, swimming and table tennis at London 2012, Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 but have yet to be represented at the Winter Paralympics with no intellectual disability classifications at Beijing 2022.

Speaking to Japanese news agency Kyodo News, Saito has called on the IPC to provide a platform for intellectually disabled athletes to participate at the Winter Paralympics.

Japan sent athletes to compete at the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympics but there were no classes for intellectually disabled competitors ©Getty Images
Japan sent athletes to compete at the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympics but there were no classes for intellectually disabled competitors ©Getty Images

"They should increase the number of intellectual disability Paralympic medal events in order to give athletes with intellectual disability a chance to inspire the world," said Saito.

Hideki Arai, general manager of the Japan Para-Ski Federation, has added his voice to calls for Winter Paralympic events for athletes with an intellectual impairment.

"Many athletes with intellectual disabilities from all over the world gathered in Nagano," said Arai.

"I want, not just the Summer Games, but the Winter Games to be a place where all Para athletes can compete regardless of their functional capacity."

Last week, the Government of Sapporo published its draft plan as part of its bid for the city to stage the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in eight years’ time.

The plan puts the budget scale for the Games at approximately ¥200 billion (£1.3 million/$1.7 million/€1.5 million) to ¥220 billion (£1.4 million/$1.8 million/€1.7 million).

Sapporo is currently conducting continuous dialogue with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) regarding its bid, although this could be shifted to targeted dialogue if approved by the IOC Executive Board.

It is one of a host of locations to have launched bids for 2030, along with Salt Lake City in the United States, Barcelona in Spain, Vancouver in Canada and Ukraine.