Unfair Advantage
On Monday in London the IAAF disqualified double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius from the 400 after he ran the race in 47.65 because they say that the prosthetic legs Pistorius uses provide less air resistance than normal legs.
Ok, I want everyone to take a second, clear your head and read the above paragraph again.
Now that we’re all together may I say, “WHAT!” THE GUYS DOESN’T EVEN HAVE LEGS! I think it’s amazing that a guy who doesn’t have legs ever took up the sport of running and that he is actually doing quite well. I also think it’s nitpicking to say that it provides him with an unfair advantage. Maybe his prosthesis’ are more aerodynamic, but I would say that not having legs is more of a disadvantage. At least us people with non-aerodynamic legs can feel the ends of them; Oscar Pistorius can’t!
Furthermore, the IAAF introduced a rule in March banning any runner that benefits from artificial help from competing.
All I can say is, “Give me a break!” We should be celebrating the people who are brave enough to take on challenges like this, not looking for ways to keep it “fair” (however you may define fair).
OK, rant over.
July 17th, 2007 at 10:04 am
Well… I wish it were all this clear cut. But think about it.. this guy’s legs appear to not only be aerodynamic, but they also appear to have a bit of a spring to them, so his strides are bigger (this is the first I’ve seen his picture). Then he has no knee joints, you know what keeps me from running? My knees. They hurt. The other part that keeps people from running are their shins. Finally the other reason I don’t run… flat feet.
So while on the surface it sounds absurd, I’m sure if I was a competitor I’d be very upset to lose to this guy who doesn’t have to deal with the common elements of the sport.
Not minimizing his unbelievable perseverance, but the facts are the facts. I’m sure nothing is stopping this guy from running in non sanctioned races (marathons and such), but when you train for years to run in the race to see that a guy has what he has turned into an advantage, would stink.
The story does pull at the emotional heart strings, but I can certainly see why they decided what they decided.
July 18th, 2007 at 8:22 am
The guy definitely has knees otherwise his legs would not be able to bend. It just looks like that because the prosthesis has to overlap his leg somewhere. And I would venture to guess that because of that he endures more pain than most runners every will.
You can go somewhere on youtube.com and see a video of him running and there is absolutely no spring in those legs of his that there isn’t in our ankles. It has to give a little, but the first time I watched the video I couldn’t tell which one was him running. The prosthesis seem to work very much like real legs. I think the real issue the IAAF has is that his graphite (or whatever they are) leg bars cut through the air with less resistance than our fleshy legs.