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Technology Wins: Blade Runner Amputee Barred From Olympics

OSCAR Pistorius has no legs. How does he run? Fast.

The International Association of Athletics Federations has ruled that Pistorius’s state-of-the-art carbon fiber prosthetics “should be considered as technical aids which give him an advantage over other athletes not using them.”

[German professor Gert-Peter] Brueggemann found that Pistorius was able to run at the same speed as able bodied runners on about a quarter less energy. He found that once the runners hit a certain stride, athletes with artificial limbs needed less additional energy than other athletes.

The professor found that the returned energy ”from the prosthetic blade is close to three times higher than with the human ankle joint in maximum sprinting.”…

Pistorius was born without fibulas — the long, thin outer bone between the knee and ankle — and was 11 months old when his legs were amputated below the knee.

Is this an unfair advantage? Or is it just that technology is better then nature?

Anorak

Posted: 14th, January 2008 | In: Back pages Comments (7) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink

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bugy says:
January 16th, 2008 at 3:35 pm

It is my professional opinion that “Blade Runner” should not be allowed to compete with the rest of the Olympic runners because robots are not humans.
No, really, they have different classes for men and women, so why can”t they add another class for “Blade Runners.” This is because adding those prosthetic legs does give him a different chance in the Olympics, just like men are more likely to win over women (sorry ladies, but it’’s proven).
Plus, with his prosthetic legs it is not an accurate measure of Oscar’’s physicall ability, it’’s a measure of only some of his physicall ability and some of his mechanical ability. Normal runners don”t have mechanical abilities.

This may seem unfair to Oscar, and it is, but life is unfair.

dairy says:
January 15th, 2008 at 2:48 pm

hmm - never seen a horse running with a backpack full of rocks before… could start a whole new trend..!

David says:
January 15th, 2008 at 1:18 pm

How about a little horse style handicapping? He could run with a backpack filled with rocks.

dairy says:
January 15th, 2008 at 10:29 am

it’s a shame after all the hard work and effort the guy has put in, to deny him the possibility of competing - if they can measure so precisely what his advantage is, then surely they could sort it out…?