Every participant at the Paralympics has their disability grouped into one of five disability categories; amputation, the condition may be congenital or sustained through injury or illness; cerebral palsy; wheelchair athletes, there is often overlap between this and other categories; visual impairment, including blindness; Les autres, any physical disability that does not fall strictly under one of the other categories, for example dwarfism or multiple sclerosis.[6][7] Each Paralympic sport then has its own classifications, dependent upon the specific physical demands of competition. Events are given a code, made of numbers and letters, describing the type of event and classification of the athletes competing. Events with "B" in the code are for athletes with visual impairment, codes LW1 to LW9 are for athletes who stand to compete and LW10 to LW12 are for athletes who compete sitting down. Alpine skiing events grouped athletes into separate competitions for sitting, standing and visually impaired athletes.[8]
Ramil Gayazov was 28 at the time of these Games, who competed in the standing category of events. On 13 March 2014, he was disqualified during the first run of the slalom for missing a gate.[9] Two days later, despite being entered into the giant slalom, he failed to start the race for unknown reasons.[10]
For the 2014 Winter Paralympics, snowboard cross was considered a discipline of Alpine skiing, rather than a separate sport.[11] Snowboarding was offered only for athletes who competed in a standing position.[11] The men's snowboard cross event was held on 14 March 2014. Yevgeniy Slepov posted his two best times on runs 1 and 3, and only the two best times of each athlete counted towards the final result.[12] Slepov finished with a combined time of three minutes and two seconds, over a minute off the winning time of one minute and forty-three seconds.[13] He finished in 32nd place out of 33 competitors.[13]