Oscar Pistorius

Clearly I live under a rock when it comes to track and field because although I had seen him before ....but I never realised he races able bodied athletes with those contraptions on his legs. Amazing! But a slippery slope? Are those things giving him an advantage?

yeh seemed like having carbon fibre pogo sticks on the end of your legs to me

There was some doubt over whether they gave him an advantage, and although he was initially allowed to race able-bodied athletes, he was eventually banned.


The key thing with these, is that while there might be some advantage when running along at full speed, it's considerable more difficult to get going on them than it is to get going on regular legs. So eventually it was decided that there was no nett benefit to having them, and the decision was reversed, so now he can race with the legged-folk.

Ya just read up some more on him, amazing story. His nickname is Blade Runner! (fairly obvious but still awesome)

What a dude! Deffo a fan. Id say he is my 1st disabled athlete Ive been a fan of but he's mixing it up with the elite!

the thing is tho if he wins it wont seem like an honest victory it would just mean that we werent capable of judging the nett benefits correctly. the bottom line (without being nasty or anything ) is that hes a cripple and shouldnt win any sporting event. hey man go hard running around for fun if you want to but dont get all competitive , its just wrong.

Pistorious gets a silver in the 4x400m relay ...a bit lame really since he didn't run in the final I just watched. I guess he must have run in the heat for SA then got subbed out in the finals.

Was also listening on the radio earlier today where they were saying he has a disadvantage at the starts, but once he hits his stride he has an advantage (no wonder he does the longer sprints then), so apparently that makes it ok as it evens it out? Which I don't entirely agree with. It just seems a bit wrong having someone running with what is effectively a spring loaded devices attached to their legs.

Have they been able to compare length of stride before and after with him? Or has he just come to prominence as a sprinter post whatever happened to his legs?

Some good pountdand questions raised harvey, the more I think about this the more unsure I am about this situation. He's like a reallife six million dollar man at the Olympics

What is it about South African athletes/sportspeople and controversy? The two things seem to be endlessly linked

that's cool that you think that it "looks" like he's running on springs, or that it "looks" like he has an advantage. But there are ways to try test these things with facts.

Also Harvey, he's hasn't had legs since he was a baby.

Also, these things have been common in paralympics for ages (uppity cripples getting competitive about sport! what a joke eh peat?) and the simple fact is that he dominates the fuck out of paralympians. He is something special.

Oh, and he runs 400 because it's his strongest event... sure he wins golds in 100m and 200m too, but he's way better at 400m.

I'm just going by what the guy on National Radio was saying. He happened to have the same sort of artificial legs and he said that once you hit your stride you get an advantage, but he figured it was OK, since it probably balanced out with fact it was harder to get going on them.

Yeah, ran in the heats because the top guys were concentrating on the individual 400m at that point.

neil - it totally debunks the spirit of good competition to have a different apparatus in essence to your fellow sportsperson.
its like the catamaran vs the monohull debate.
i just tend to think that in a running race the apparatus is human legs,not a constructed device. .
but hey let him race if he wants.... y'know, humour him if you want, but i cant even begin to consider it legitimate.

If the able-bodied athletes think he has an advantage they should clearly chop their legs off and get on the bandwagon :>

This is sort of the slippery slope I was referring to..... the recent generation of athletes have had to resist the temptation of drugs. Is the next generation going to have to instead grapple the dilemna of removing limbs for bionic replacements?

if this sort of technology means super powered imbs and the like become more and more of a reality, sports bodies are going to flat out dealing with the messes. Perhaps it will even result in the death of some sports

If we let Muli bowl, we can let this guy run.

This guy is my fkn hero

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/athletics/14804708.stm

yep...I like it. He let the guy go so far... then canned it when he went OTT

how is it any different to wearing really awesome shoes. Surely the guy with good shoes is gonna have an advantage over the guy wearing leather and wood contraptions?! Should we ban shoes too?

No need, everyone knows you run faster in bare feet FFS!

His potential advantages also come from lack of injury risk... the ability to have an effectively custom elasticity and infinite strength where the Achilles tendon would normally be - a huge factor in running speed, paired with a complete absence of fatigue in that area. His stride rate which is also amongst the fastest recorded, a factor of the prosthetic leg's lack of weight (or perhaps even wind resistance) so he surely has some advantage which able-body athletes do not.

All that separates him from others is his athletic ability per se, and the fine-tuning of the prosthetic legs. Neither of these can be tested comprehensively or comparatively to a level which everyone will be happy.

Had to google this in case it was a word that I didn't know coz it kinda looks like it should be a German or Scandinavian one I should be using

Anyhoos, only came in to waste (quite literally, it's a four minute bass solo :> ) everyone's time by posting this: