Sport Oscar Pistorius

[Lamp]

Seb Coe says OP welcome at the 2012 Olympics

BBC Sport - Oscar Pistorius welcome at London 2012 - Coe

They were just discussing this on the radio

Should he be allowed to compete alongside able bodied athletes?
Does it matter if he hasn't an unfair advantage?

Amputees phoned up and said he doesn't have an unfair advantage as you need to expend at least 25% more energy to move an amputated limb than a normal limb.

He's not going to win gold, but surely he should be allowed to give it a go?

 

[Lollie]

i may be wrong but i seem to recall another amputee competing in a championship of some sort against some of the best sprinters in the world, he came dead last.

As for being able, of course he should, surely thats the whole spirit of the games (assuming he has the qualifying times).

 

[Huntingtons]

not legs, shouldnt be allowed

 

[Zede]

not legs, shouldnt be allowed

agree

 

[kirennia]

The problem comes later down the line when prosthetics will inevitably allow for faster running then using standard legs. By this point, people will be able to cite previous instances when prosthetics were allowed and there will be no arguement against it. You also can't allow something in a competitive environment on the basis of it being or not being an advantage; it's either in the rules or it isn't.

 

[Huntingtons]

kirennia speaks for me!

 

[Chilly]

If he can qualify, why not. However, as the technology gets better, this kind of amputee will be faster than a regular human and it wouldnt be fair.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

What next, women in men's races? Utter nonsense. There need to be different categories for a reason.

 

[Huntingtons]

its not quite far to compare this to women. at least he still has a dick that he can think with.

 

[cHodAX]

its not quite far to compare this to women. at least he still has a dick that he can think with.

Yep that is 50% more thinking tissue than most women have!

 

[Mabs]

up next..Russian trainers forcing amputation on young hopefuls

doesnt bother me tbh, but there is a paralympics for people who arent 100% , and yea its exploitable eventually

 

[Huntingtons]

well... Isnt there a saying that you can messure a guys wang by the size of his feet? if so, this guy definatly has some issues he needs to deal with

 

[Ormorof]

i am sitting on the fence because while i can see he deserves to be there as he has made the qualifying time, i am worried about the door this opens once the tech becomes better and better

 

[Gumbo]

I'm torn too, but if the blades were such an advantage, how come it's only this lad getting close to fast enough to compete? There's a lot of amputees out there.

 

[kiliarien]

Is this the literal definition of a bloke with a spring in his step??

I agree that it'll be open to exploitation down the line, although technological advancements could legally be categorised in races so augmentation could happen.

The spirit of the games is to allow it, but the paralympics exist for just that.

 

[Killswitch]

I voted "yes" but to be honest, that's more of a gut feeling than anything else. I think there are two main variables here; Competitiveness and Fairness and I think they are (mostly) mutually exclusive.

Increasing Competitiveness would generally involve more segregation of athletes by various factors which could (and do) include gender, race, socio-economic background, equipment type, height and so on. It's obvious that women simply can't compete with men in the 100m so they get their own race. It's equally obvious that white sprinters can't generally compete with black ones, but they don't get their own race. There's a male and female NBA, but no separate NBA for short people.

It might well be that the most competitive sprint at the Olympics could be the "100 Meters for Afro-Caribbean Males between 5'10" and 6'4" wearing Nike equipment with annual funding over $200k".

Increasing Fairness means less segregation and allowing more people to compete in the same event. At the extreme end this would involve able-bodied and disabled men and women competing in the same events at the same time. This would lead almost exclusively to finals being contested between able-bodied men.

I think the best way to do this balancing is based purely on performance, with no other factors taken in to consideration. If a women can run sub-10s 100m then she should be running against Gay and Bolt and the same with a disabled athlete like Pistorius.

The concern that this could lead to an "arms race" of technology seems to me to be a strawman and I think it's no different to the race for the best training methods, the best technique, the best diet, the best running shoes or anything else.

I'm not even sure that we take the right approach with doping. Provided the drugs are legal and are proven not to cause harm to the athlete, I'm not sure why they shouldn't be allowed. In the same way I think a disabled athlete using illegal/dangerous equipment should face a ban. To be honest if someone wants to have their legs amputated and replaced with some cyberpunk-style electronics then I don't see what the problem is!!

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