Should Runners with High-tech Prostheses Be Allowed to Compete Against Non-disabled Athletes?

November 27, 2007

Oscar Pistorius can run the 100 meters in 10.91 seconds, about a second behind the fastest sprinters in the world. But what’s really amazing about the 21-year-old South African is that he does it without lower legs or feet. Born without fibulas, Pistorius’ lower legs were amputated when he was just 11 months old. But he didn’t let his disability prevent him from playing rugby, until a serious knee injury compelled him to give up the sport. At his physician’s suggestion, he switched to track. Pistorius, who uses transtibial prostheses to run, immediately became a sensation. In his first competition in 2004, after just two months of training, he ran the 100 meters in 11.51 seconds, shattering the world record for amputees by seven-tenths of a second. Eight months later, in the Athens Paralympics, he won a silver medal in the 100 and a gold in the 200 meters, with a 21.97 time that made him the first amputee ever to break 22 seconds at that distance. Since then, he’s broken his own world records more than two dozen times.

Pistorius is no longer content to run only in races for disabled runners. Here’s an amazing YouTube video of him running against fully abled competitors in the 400 meters at a meet in Rome in July, in which he finished second with a time of 46.9 seconds. (That’s 3.8 seconds off the world record set by Michael Johnson back in 1999.) His dream is to compete in the Olympic Games.

Undeniably, Pistorius is one of the world’s most incredible athletes — one who, as a must-read Wired magazine profile of him puts it, may compel the world to rethink what it means to be a disabled athlete. But is it fair to permit him to compete against fully abled runners? It’s unclear whether his state-of-the-art  Cheetah carbon-fiber racing prostheses, made by Icelandic manufacturer Ossur, merely make him nearly as fast as he would be with his own lower legs, or whether the continual advances that designers are making in the technology ultimately will make him even faster than he might have been.

The International Association of Athletics Federations, track and field’s international governing body, is pondering the question. An IAAF rule already prohibits “use of any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides the user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device.” But the federation has agreed to allow Pistorius to compete in some races so that scientists can study him and the impact of his use of prostheses. (Relatively little research has been done on double-amputee runners, particularly ones who lost lower limbs at such a young age.) But according to a May 2007 New York Times article, IAAF director of development Elio Locatelli is against allowing Pistorius to compete. “With all due respect, we cannot accept something that provides advantages. It affects the purity of sport. Next will be another device where people can fly with something on their back.”

But Pistorius also has his supporters. In the Times article, Robert Gailey, an associate professor of physical therapy at the University of Miami Medical School, questioned the IAAF’s motives. “Are they looking at not having an unfair advantage?” He asked. “Or are they discriminating because of the purity of the Olympics, because they don’t want to see a disabled man line up against an able-bodied man for fear that if the person who doesn’t have the perfect body wins, what does that say about the image of man?”

What do you think? Express your opinion by posting a comment here.

Comments

[Daniel Klaisner]

To start off i just want to say that I highly respect Mr. Pistorius. He is in fact an incredibale athelete. Now the matter if he should compete or not is a touchy debate. Due to the rules of the olympics the answer is simple...no he cannot. But I propose a simple solution. All of his opponents should take a vote. If a majority of the athelets say lets let him compete then let him compete. Personally I think he has an advantage because his legs are partly mechanical, BUT i would love to see him compete and show that being handicapp DOES NOT make you less human.

[Gary Richins]

Oscar Pistorius. should not be allowed to run against non amputee. because he has less muscles to tire and uses less oxygen because of missing said muscles. Also there is a propulsion advantage. notice he was less tired than the other guys though he ran much harder from lane 8 around the final bend.

[Tirebiter]

I don't think that Pistorius' artificial legs give him an unfair advantage now. But if the technology continues to advance, I could envision a point in time when a bionic runner could run much faster than any fully-abled sprinter. And what if other sorts of potentially performance-enhancing devices are developed, such as neural implants that would improve peripheral vision or balance or increase the nervious system's ability to mobilize muscle fibers?

[Minh]

1. I think that if Barry Bonds and other steroid-using baseball hitters are allowed to rewrite the record book, it's unfair not to let someone like Pistorius compete. Unlike them, he's not trying to conceal something to gain an unfair advantage. He's trying to overcome a disability.

2. If we're ever going to have a truly inclusive society for people with disabilities, we have to provide them full access to everything--not separate but equal, but full access. That includes sports.

[Charles M. Palmer]

I don't care.
Chuckie baby

[Patrick]

Does that mean that you think Pistorius should be allowed to compete, or that you don't care one way or the other about it?

[Patrick]

btw, here's a really fascinating analysis of this controversy by two South African sports scientists.

http://scienceofsport.blogspot.com/2007/07/oscar-pistorius-science-and-engineering.html

[chris fiddner]

I believe that he should be allowed to compete in the olimpics it'll give hope to those that are disabled and push the abled athletes to the next level.

[watch vampire diaries online]

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