Here's an article supporting the banning of him:
June 24, 2007
June 24: Oscar Pretorius, The Sprinter With The Artificial Legs, Doesn't Belong In The Olympics
I KNOW I'D BE SMART TO IGNORE the bait and leave this subject alone, but I just can't resist. On Saturday, the IAAF apparently told South African double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius that he's free to compete in international competitions this year, including the World Championships.
What have these people been smokin'?
Let me say this in my defense: I have a sister who's an amputee. I support all reasonable rules and regulations for challenged athletes. The IAAF has adopted a cautious and prudent approach, saying it wants to encourage more research before making any doors-slammed-in-your-face decisions. (There are plenty of good Web stories about Pistorius and the IAAF;
here's one with a telling photo.)
What's informative about the photo? It shows Pistorius walking onto a track for a workout. He's wearing his track legs while carrying another pair of legs, his "social legs" we might call them. The clear implication: The track legs are faster than the social legs. Today. And there's nothing to stop them from becoming even faster tomorrow. And the day after that. The manufacturers of prosthetic legs aren't exactly resting on their laurels. They're developing better legs every day. Hate to bring this up, but the war in Iraq is a powerful stimulus, given all the injured, and the Army's funding of medical research for them.
The IAAF doesn't have an end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it situation on its hands. Not yet anyway. Pistorius's best time in the 400 meters, 46.56, isn't good enough to qualify him for the Beijing Olympic Games, where the "A" and "B" standards are 45.55 and 45.95. So far this year, which hasn't yet entered the big European season, 20 athletes worldwide have run 45.26 or faster. To be a second behind world-class runners, as Pistorius is, amounts to a huge gap.
But the gap is the point. Pistorius doesn't have to narrow it by training harder. He only needs a better set of equipment.
In 1975 Bob Hall became the first athlete to complete the Boston Marathon in a wheelchair, clocking a 2:58. In 1980, Curt Brinkman wheeled the course in 1:55:00. Three years ago Ernst Van Dyk rolled Boston in 1:18:27. That's an improvement, in 30 years, of roughly 100 minutes. Mostly because of better, faster equipment. During the same period, the men's course record has dropped less than 3 minutes to Robert Cheruiyot's 2:07:14. Because human physiology is notoriously difficult to enhance. Without drugs. Or better equipment. (For another reference, see Exhibit A, the pole vault.)
A mechanical leg and a human leg are vastly different equipment. The latter has an unmatched "intelligence," which is why you can run on both dry concrete and soft sand. A mechanical leg is dumb; it has to be chiseled and "tuned" to its task; it can't run on both concrete and sand. If Pistorius were to run both the 100 meters and 10,000 meters, he would probably chose different prostheses for each, since the biomechanical forces are different between the two.
The rest of us don't get to make choices like this. We're forced to sprint, run marathons, and do triathlons with the same set of legs (amputee triathletes often use different legs for bicycling and running.)
Pistorius is an inspiration, as are all challenged athletes who strive to be the best they can be in their given fields. I hope he keeps running track, and also that he rises to the top in business, politics, the arts, or whatever his chosen field might be. I'm glad that the Olympic movement includes a Paralympic Games, where athletes like Pistorius can win gold medals and set world records, as he already has. I feel fortunate every day to have been born ably-bodied, and wouldn't exchange places with Pistorius for anything.
But I don't believe he belongs in the World Championships or Olympics. He's running on hardware, not normal legs and feet. And when the sport is
running, as opposed to, say, Scrabble, Chess or Archery, your legs and feet make all the difference.
What do you think? Please leave your thoughts and opinions in the Comments section.
<!-- technorati tags -->
hno:The rest of us don't get to make choices like this. We're forced to sprint, run marathons, and do triathlons with the same set of legs (amputee triathletes often use different legs for bicycling and running.)
