The 2015 IPC Swimming World Championships was the eighth IPC Swimming World Championships, an international swimming competition for athletes with a disability. It was held in Glasgow, United Kingdom and took place from 13 to 19 July. Around 580 athletes from around 70 countries competed at the games, with Russia topping the tables with most gold medals and medals won.[1] The event was held at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre located within Tollcross Park in Glasgow.[1] Initially awarded as the IPC Swimming European Championships, the event was upgraded to a World Championship after a change to the IPC calendar.[2]
This proved to be the final event branded as the "IPC Swimming World Championships". On 30 November 2016, the IPC, which serves as the international federation for 10 disability sports, including swimming, adopted the "World Para" brand for all 10 sports. The world championship events in all of these sports were immediately rebranded as "World Para" championships. Accordingly, future IPC swimming championship events will be known as the "World Para Swimming Championships".[3]
The Championship was staged at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre located at Tollcross, Glasgow. The venue possesses a 10 lane competition class swimming pool, and after a £13.7 million upgrade in 2013, a six lane 50 meter warm-up pool was added.[4][5]
Athletes are allocated a classification for each event based upon their disability to allow fairer competition between athletes of similar ability. The classifications for swimming are:
Classifications run from S1 (severely disabled) to S10 (minimally disabled) for athletes with physical disabilities, and S11 (totally blind) to S13 (legally blind) for visually impaired athletes. Blind athletes must use blackened goggles.