Mandy, let's leave aside the issue of whether or not the prosthetics actually give any sort of edge. I think I could concince you that they do but not without getting into some fairly technical issues that you're probably not interested in.
One thing that's undeniable here is the weight issue. Because he has no legs and the materials used to make the prosthetics, Pistorious weighs significanly less than an able-bodied sprinter. Whenever you deal with acceleration sports, weight is key. Fake legs weigh less than real ones and impart an artificial disadvantage to the user. The longer the race, the greater the advantage. The rule I was taught in high school was that one ounce of savings equaled 50 lbs in a 1 mile race. Honestly I don't know if that's true or not, but with shoes, the idea is that each time you lift them, that 1 ounce acculates with each step. If you take 1600 steps per mile, that's a lot of weight.
If Pistorious takes 100 steps in a 100m race but saves 25 lbs with carbon fiber legs, that's 2500 lbs that he doesn't have to carry that his able-bodied competitors have.
As an aside, this theory is the reason that eating disorders are so prevalent among young female athletes. The last number I saw had 60% of all high school and college female distance runners suffering from some sort of disorder. The more successful the athlete, the more likely to have a disorder. Its sort of scarey.
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