Do you need a medical certificate to practice a sport?

Is it mandatory to provide a medical certificate to practice a sport?

The requirement to provide a medical certificate depends on how you practice the sport:

• within a club affiliated to a sports federation or not (commercial or associative structure);
• alone or in school.

Your club or federation may ask you to provide a medical certificate attesting to the absence of a contraindication to the practice of the sport or discipline concerned.

This is not a legal obligation, but a condition linked to the club's or federation's rules. The frequency of presentation of the certificate shall be laid down in the internal rules of that body.

The regulations differ depending on whether you are an adult or a minor.

Which sports are still subject to medical certification?

The presentation of the medical certificate of non-contraindication to sport remains mandatory for the following sports with special constraints:

• mountaineering, scuba diving, caving;
• parachuting;
• rugby union, rugby league and rugby VII;
• sports, practiced in competition, for which the fight can end by K-O (English boxing, kickboxing, savate...);
• sports involving the use of firearms or compressed air weapons (shooting, ball-trap, biathlon);
• sports, practiced in competition, involving the use of vehicles, with the exception of radio-guided motor modeling (sport-car, go-karting and motorcycling);
• aeronautical sports practiced in competition, with the exception of aeromodelism (aerobatics, gliding, free flight...).