Oscar Pistorius - known as Blade Runner - is a South-African sprinter with a difference: he runs on two artificial lower legs and feet fast enough that he may qualify for the Olympics. And that's something he can now attempt, given that the Court of Arbitration for Sport has just overturned his ban.
The International Association of Athletics had ruled against him competing against able-bodied runners. All because of the specialized carbon-fiber Cheetah Flex-Foot prosthetic feet he uses, which represented an unfair mechanical advantage, maintained the IAAF.
6 comment(s):
The entire piece sounds like a critic to the IAAF and how unfair this has been, but I think they did the right thing basing their decisions on the studies (both regarding the original ban and their subsequent decision to overturn it). I mean, what if he wanted to compete against able-bodied runners using a bicycle? That would have given him an obvious advantage, right? Well, how can one tell whether these contraptions are indeed an unfair advantage or not just by looking at them? Even the guy himself can't assess that, because he doesn't have any term for comparison...
Well, any advantages that those blades may provide once he gets going are mitigated by the fact that he can't use the blocks to start and by the fact that HE HAS NO FREAKING LEGS!
Pistorius uses the blocks when he sprints. I think he's obviously a great athlete because very few people w/ or w/o legs can run as fast as he can. But more research should be done as he doesn't use any energy for feet/calves and it's controversial how much energy he's using in his upper legs/buttocks. (I know during sprint workouts, my calves and feet are the first to go, followed by my upper legs). However until there is undisputed evidence, I don't think he should be banned.
I saw a report on sportscenter about him that said he couldn't use the blocks and always got off to a slow start.
I've seen him run both w/ (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Zv46b0NULFs) and w/o the blocks, so I don't know if he has had a special set made since he's become more popular. I have heard he gets off to a slower start though, which in the 1 and 2 is a huge disadvantage (probably why he's trying to qualify for the 4).
(I'm the person who posted the first message.)
shad0w, I'm sorry, I've been ambiguous -- I totally respect the man for being so close to qualifying to the "proper" Olympics, I'm sure *I* wouldn't qualify even if they allowed me to used a bicycle. :-) But try to assess this in the spirit of the actual Olympic Games. The Olympic Games have always been intended to display the best of the best in what the human body can do. We already know what good engineering can do -- we have engines and rockets and all that stuff. The question (which, again, I find quite sensible) is whether his blades are indeed an unfair advantage or not. Yes, unfair -- we humans are smart enough to conceivably imagine a device which is actually better than our own legs, in which case "HE HAS NO FREAKING LEGS" would ironically become an advantage in a race where any device would be allowed. (Of course, I'm not saying it is an advantage as it is, please revisit my original message if in doubt of where I'm going with this.)
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