05-15-2007, 06:25 AM | #1 (permalink) | |
Tilted Cat Head
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An Amputee Sprinter: Is He Disabled or Too-Abled?
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I think this is a no brainer. He shouldn't be allowed to compete unless the rules are designed that allow for it. Otherwise, what is stopping the creation of a new and improved prostetic device from bettering him? It isn't any longer going to be about the human, but about the technology surrounding and supporting him.
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05-15-2007, 06:47 AM | #2 (permalink) |
Asshole
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For the sake of intellectual honesty, let me state for the record that not only am I a track geek but that I've had this conversation numerous times over the past 15 years.
Pistorious has an artificial advantage and should not be allowed to compete. Period. End of story. He actually has several advantages. First, the Dr. Gailey that's quoted as saying that a natural leg returns 240% of the energy needs to check his figures. The numbers he's using (I think) involves the comparison of the energy from the downward part of the stride compared to the upwards motion. Both involve large muscular movements. The "spring" is the muscles stretching and rebounding within the running stride and require large amounts of movement to acheive efficiently. What he's trying to say is that Pistorious is running on a superball while the able-bodied are running on jet packs. It's not a fair comparison at all. Second, and probably more importantly, Pistorious has huge weight advantage. It takes a lot less energy to move 200 lbs. up to 20 mph than it does 175 lbs - or 150 lbs. That's why the classic sprinter build is under 6'. Ben Johnson, who I mention because of his own competitive advantage problems, is closer to 5' 6". Dennis Green, my all-time favorite sprinter, is about 5' 8". I've met and spent time with both. The stride length issue would come more into play if Pistorius was a middle-distance or long-distance runner since efficiently adding 3" to a stride would cut 15 seconds off a 1500m time (same amount of energy expended with both strides). That's the difference between having the words "World Record Holder" and "Decent Division III Runner" in that event.
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05-15-2007, 06:49 AM | #3 (permalink) | |
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If you're going to argue that a sport should be solely based on the abilities of the athlete, then we also need to address the technology used by the non-disabled participants as well. |
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05-15-2007, 06:52 AM | #4 (permalink) | |
Tilted Cat Head
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05-15-2007, 07:04 AM | #5 (permalink) | |
Asshole
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One other thing of note - currently Pistorious isn't even in the same category as the elite high school athletes in the US. His times aren't there. Male high schoolers are typically .4 to .6 seconds faster than he is, which is an eternity in the 100.
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05-15-2007, 07:10 AM | #6 (permalink) | ||
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05-15-2007, 08:11 AM | #7 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: Ontario, Canada
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A applaud his ability and desire - it is remarkable to have achieved what he has. But no, he can't compete in the regular Olympics until it is determined, beyond doubt, that his artificial limbs do not provide him with an advantage.
Personally, I don't think they do - despite their lightness and springiness there's nothing like using the human foot and calf muscles to run. But I wouldn't chance it and spoil it for the other athletes.
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05-15-2007, 08:26 AM | #8 (permalink) | |
Tilted Cat Head
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05-15-2007, 08:56 AM | #9 (permalink) | |
Junkie
Location: Ontario, Canada
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I supported Martin's case - he was (and is) getting weaker and weaker, and quite frankly, even with the cart, he gets physically tired more quickly than able bodied golfers, and the walking aspect isn't really that integral to golf. The USGA weakened its own argument in that instance as they fully sanction carts on the Seniors Tour, for various amateur events, for Skins games, and they are even used, during play-offs, on the regular PGA tour at times.
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05-15-2007, 09:01 AM | #10 (permalink) |
Asshole
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Comparing Pistorius to Casey Martin isn't entirely fair. I understand the USGA's argument that walking is a part of the game, and I even agree to some extent. However, it would be something entirely different if Martin were playing with spring-loaded prostetic arms or were allowed to shoot the balls from an arm-mounted cannon (although I for one would probably pay to see that). That's a much truer comparision to what's being proposed.
I know we all hate "separate-but-equal", but there's really no other way to fairly stage certain events that deal in strength and speed. What if he wanted to use a narrow wheelchair? Where do you draw the line?
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05-15-2007, 09:42 AM | #11 (permalink) |
Please touch this.
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Good discussion and silly at the same time. The man has artificial legs. He is a construct of technology. While he may have the will and the determination, he is no faster than the technology he uses. He may be able to push more out of his technology, but the minute the technology is improved, he will be that much faster. By that means, his efforts may be honorable, but his eligibility to be judged against naturally-abled men is invalid.
This has nothing to do with some homage to the perfection of the human body. That argument is pompous.
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05-15-2007, 09:44 AM | #12 (permalink) |
Muffled
Location: Camazotz
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The idea that he has access to something that other sprinters do not is false. They have access to something he does not: natural legs. If they want his advantage they can always cut their legs off and get prosthetics.
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05-15-2007, 09:56 AM | #13 (permalink) |
spudly
Location: Ellay
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Maybe the runners with feet could get shoes with spring-loaded pogo stick attachments to lengthen their stride. Or maybe even the combustion powered spring shoes the Russian military was working on (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/...es.php?page=1). After all, the disabled fellow could get fitted for some too...
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05-15-2007, 10:16 AM | #14 (permalink) | |
Asshole
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As for the first, the idea is true, despite what you think. First, lack of legs means a lower weight that will not be compesated for with the prothetics. That is a competitive advantage no matter how you look at it. Second, the way these legs work creates an unnaturally long stride, and that is a huge competitive advantage. Track and field is the most basic of all sports (except maybe swimming). All the competitions are absolute, and everyone knows exactly where they stand in the pecking order and publications like Track and Field News make sure that everyone knows where everyone else is down to the hundredth of a second or the nearest centimeter. With the exception of the pole vault, no tools are used in any event, and all are either a measure of strength or speed over an agreed-upon distance. In my opinion (as an admitted track geek), it is competition at its purest. Allowing ANY kind of prosthetics such as these will be detrimental to the sport since there is no limit on where they will end. Jet shoes for fallen arches? Cow catchers for hurdlers? In-race oxygen masks for marathoners? Once you allow anyone to use a prosthetic in track, you're going to have a hard time keeping anyone else from using one. Doping is bad enough, let's not make things worse.
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo |
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05-15-2007, 11:38 AM | #16 (permalink) | |
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Let me ask you this - what if this runner had lost an arm? Should we forbid him from competing? After all, the average runner's arm weighs a lot more than an amputee's shoulder. Wouldn't that give him a power-to-weight ratio advantage? |
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05-15-2007, 11:40 AM | #17 (permalink) |
Muffled
Location: Camazotz
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The_Jazz
You're right, I am joking about a bit, but you need to recognize that I did not say his missing legs were a disadvantage, just that others had access to something he did not. I acknowledge that these prosthetics give him an advantage. So your argument is that only an unmodified human can compete fairly? What if a guy was just missing his arms? He could run a lot faster with less weight, should he be barred from competing? ....shakran get out of my head, please.
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it's quiet in here Last edited by Kadath; 05-15-2007 at 11:41 AM.. Reason: Coincidence. |
05-15-2007, 12:29 PM | #19 (permalink) |
Asshole
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Oh I got the joke. I'm just a track geek. You've got to forgive me.
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05-15-2007, 02:22 PM | #20 (permalink) | |
Found my way back
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I've just spent the better part of an hour discussing (and half fighting) this issue with mandy.
I'm South African, so when I see my fellow countrymen doing well on the world stage, I applaud them. Let me state, however, that while Oscar's goals seem noble I don't believe that they'll be fair. Nobody knows - without a doubt - whether his artificial limbs are a help or a hindrance. Whether it can ever be proven is also questionable. Let's say one day they do prove that his Cheetah's give him an advantage - he shouldn't then be allowed to compete against able-bodied athletes, right? And if the converse were proven to be true, would he even want to compete with them? mandy mentioned something that firms my opinion. Natalie du Toit, a South African swimmer, only has one and a half legs. She is allowed to - and does so - compete with able-bodied swimmers. She is an Olympic gold medalist. She doesn't swim with any prosthetics or device that would 'even the playing field' for her. This is the approach I think should be followed with any disabled athlete wanting to compete in able-bodied events. I have no problem with them proving themselves against their able-bodied counterparts, but if they want to do so, let them do it without a possibly unfair technological advantage.
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05-15-2007, 03:16 PM | #21 (permalink) |
Asshole
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Ok - can I edit my posts to read "what healer said"?
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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin "There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo |
05-15-2007, 07:12 PM | #22 (permalink) | |
spudly
Location: Ellay
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05-16-2007, 05:14 AM | #23 (permalink) | |
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05-16-2007, 05:23 AM | #24 (permalink) | ||
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Location: Port Elizabeth, South Africa
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BULL, if i ever heard any. I firmly believe that he should be allowed to compete. Not only because it has not been proven that his "cheetahs" are advantages to him, but because of the stats as well... normal human: 42secs/400m to Oscar's 46secs/400m with prosthetics. Quote:
i think it is, in essence, the same thing that most of you are against. he had an advantage, yet he still played in a professional able-bodied golf tournament. that people, is a clear observation...it is a clear advantage. We don't know whether or not Oscar's prosthetics are advantages to him or not. there are many able-bodied athletes out there trying to improve their game by using better technology, better swim suites, better rackets, better everything. all they can do to make them win. but there is no guarantee of winning...the equipment is only as good as the player. no body will ever be "too abled". do you think he got this way just by slapping on the cheetahs and found out one day "oh wow, these things make me such a good athlete and they make me run oh so fast...maybe i should become an olympic sprinter?" just like all other athletes, he practiced. he worked hard, he pushed himself, like all of them do...he persevered, he fought and he fought a good fight because it has got him to where he is today, which got all athletes where they are today. fine, granted if it is proven that Oscar's prosthetics give him an unfair advantage (which i doubt), he should not be allowed to compete. but for now, he's fighting for a dream...he is fighting to prove that despite his disability, he can make it happen. and who the hell are we to try and take that away from him?
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05-16-2007, 06:04 AM | #25 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: Some place windy
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There aren't clear lines between an unfair competitive advantage and a legitimate use of a performance enhancing tool. I think that if you let an amputee sprinter compete in "normal" competition - an individual who is clearly differently equipped to run a race than any other competitor - you need to consider allowing other types of performance enhancing tools as well.
My red blood cell count isn't as high as others. Should I be allowed to blood dope? Why not? It's not my fault and I work hard with my condition. I can't seem to build muscle naturally the way that other competitors can. Should I be allowed to use steroids. Why not? Why not make every performance enhancing tool fair game? |
05-16-2007, 06:35 AM | #26 (permalink) |
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Location: Port Elizabeth, South Africa
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But does the prosthetics enhance his performance? that is not proven. it is proven that steroids enhance performance...plus it's totally illegal. prosthetics are not, and neither are carbon fibre or ceramic framed tennis rackets, or drag free swim suits and caps.
it is fair game that he can at least run, that he can at least have the use of both his legs by the usage of these prosthetics.
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05-16-2007, 06:41 AM | #27 (permalink) | |
Tilted Cat Head
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his 400m time goes down exponentially if he does not have the "cheetahs" on. the underlying premise is that the prosthetics do put him at the same time area as the other competitors, that is the definition of performance enhancing right there. edited: didn't see that I had no logic in the second paragraph.
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05-16-2007, 08:39 AM | #28 (permalink) |
spudly
Location: Ellay
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Shakran, what I'm saying is that a castrato would not be hired to sing other voice parts. Castrati and tenors were acknowledged to be doing different things.
The only equivalence I can think of here would be if there was a separate event for running with prostheses. Then the two situations would be kind of similar. At any rate, the analogy kind of breaks down in that one is a process/results oriented contest and the other is an artistic pursuit/job.
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05-16-2007, 01:43 PM | #29 (permalink) |
Asshole
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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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05-16-2007, 07:31 PM | #30 (permalink) |
Banned
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I can't figure out why anyone would debate this- it's not his body, it's a device. Everyone else is competing with their bodies, he is using a device. I don't care that he trains hard and whatnot- that's all well and good but means nothing since he uses a device instead of his body. It's not even a question, in my opinion.
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05-17-2007, 04:04 AM | #31 (permalink) |
Muffled
Location: Camazotz
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analog: he is using a device in conjunction with his body. His muscles still do all the work, the 'device' is useless without him.
That being said, I still don't disagree that this grants him an advantage. I just don't care that much. Superior genetics already granted him an advantage over, say, me. I could never beat him even if I trained as hard as he did for as long as he did and he had his legs. To my mind this is like putting a star next to Wilt Chamberlain's records because he was so much taller than everyone else who played the game at the time. That his advantage was 'natural' doesn't strike me as important (or even true, nothing natural about a person being 7' 1").
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05-17-2007, 07:15 AM | #32 (permalink) |
spudly
Location: Ellay
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Kadath:
That's an interesting view that I hadn't ever considered. I have never considered the legitimacy or "naturalness" of sports by whether I could hope to compete. I guess I thought that the records and competition were interesting because they signify what the human race is capable of at its extremes. That's my interest in purity - doping or drug use makes the competition moot because you are then dealing not with the extremes of human performance, but with the extremes of altered human performance. That said, in terms of defining the current situation, it doesn't seem like this guy is running in the sense that others are. He's just doing a different activity. If there was a track and field event in which athletes regularly wore prosthetics such as stilts or spring loaded shoes, then I'd probably think that the activities were comparable.
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05-17-2007, 01:40 PM | #33 (permalink) | |
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And no, his muscles are not doing all the work. Normally, a person would have the weight of their body coming down on all the bones, muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments, etc., in the foot and lower leg with each step. He is using a device which acts as a shock absorber, and will not have nearly the same fatigue factor to his "feet" as the natural competitors. Even if you want to argue that there's no recoil springiness in the prosthesis, it is still very flexible and therefore acts as a buffer to downward force, whether or not it's capable of returning that force back upwards. That alone is an advantage over all the other competitors who don't get to wear large shock absorbers. As has been pointed out, a large factor in the overall ability of the runner is the fatigue that begins to settle in with each progressive step, and their training to have hardened their muscles against this fatigue. |
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07-15-2007, 05:41 PM | #37 (permalink) |
Junkie
Location: Ontario, Canada
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So, Pistorius as of this week has run two races against able-bodied athletes.
He finished 2nd in the B final in Italy (so against less able bodied runners, guys who likely won't make the Olympics) and was trailing badly and either got a DNF or DQ against an elite field in Sheffield, England. Having now seen him run, my impression is: A) he isn't likely to ever be fast enough to do any damage against elite able-bodied athletes. B) he still should not be allowed to compete. He starts very slowly, but it is obvious that once he builds up a head of steam, he can go as fast or faster than able-bodied runners. Whether this is due to his prostethics having some kind of spring-like effect or due to the lightness of the devices, I'm not sure. I'm very much conflicted on this as emotionally, I am pulling for him. But in the cold light of day, I'm leaning towards him having an advantage. Even if he can't beat elite able bodied runners, someone else will come along who can.
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07-15-2007, 06:06 PM | #38 (permalink) |
Mine is an evil laugh
Location: Sydney, Australia
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the arguments about swim suits, tennis racquets etc. are also not relevant to this discussion. These sports have rules that govern what equipment is allowed and what isn't and every athlete has access to the same 'level' of equipment.
His only recourse to compete in running races with able bodied athletes should be without his prosthetic limbs (i.e. he should not be allowed to compete). Similarly, I don't think the golf cart argument stacks up either. In local golf comps carts ARE allowed, though the majority of able bodied players choose not to use them. It really comes down to the PGA choosing whether to allow carts for everybody OR giving an exemption for this specific player. The benefit for a fit player is small. Having said all that, I would not allow the player special exemption to ride in a cart as it does provide an advantage. If an exemption was provided, I would expect his caddie to walk AND carry his bag as there is a clear advantage to a player whose caddie is not lugging a set of clubs around the course.
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07-15-2007, 06:39 PM | #39 (permalink) | |
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You don't think they would do something like this if they can get away with it?
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01-14-2008, 12:31 PM | #40 (permalink) | |
Tilted Cat Head
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Follow-up to the OP.
It looks like the International Association of Athletics Federations ruled that he has an unfair advantage. Quote:
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amputee, disabled, sprinter, tooabled |
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