A Victory For Diff-able Athletes EverywhereGiven Oscar Pistorius is fast enough to compete for a place in the Australian Olympic delegation, I find it incredibly difficult to call him a disabled athlete. Hence my choice of "diff-able", to mean he is a differently able Olympian.
Different indeed he is.
Pistorius had been banned from competing in the "mainstream" Olympics competitions (as opposed to the Paralympics competitions) because "his carbon-fiber prosthetics gave him an unfair advantage". The Court of Arbitration for Sport found no evidence of such advantage and with their decision, opened up the doors for athletes with prosthetics.
It is a historic and one that will definitely have repercussions years to come.
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This is a complicated issue. While I agree that Oscar Pistorius deserves a great deal of respect for the hard work he's put into his athletic career despite his handicap, I wonder: where do we draw the line?
The Olympics and other serious sporting events are competitions.
Today we're allowing engineered prosthetics -- which can only get more advanced with time. What will tomorrow bring? Artificial hearts that pump more blood and oxygen into an athlete's system?
Will we one day have all manner of things to help aging athlete's keep competing well past their prime?
Running shoes alone have gotten far more advanced than they were 100 years ago. When the Olympics began, in 1896, winning marathon times were just under three hours. Today they're just over two.
This is because of harder training regimens, yes, but also advanced technology in shoes and training methods. These technologies are great when they help our bodies perform at their maximum natural potential, but the line between nature and robotics is becoming very, very fuzzy now.
Athletics consist of a complex combination of muscular, cardiovascular, and respiratory factors. Once we start allowing people with high-tech aids that compensate for any one of those they may be lacking naturally, the playing field is no longer a level one, and the competition is rendered meaningless.
I see it as a slippery slope.
I had heard about this man while the arbitration was ongoing and this is an issue that I am torn on. On the one hand, the CAS found no evidence of advantage, which I believe was mostly based on a Harvard study.
However common sense tells me that he must have an advantage. First of all, the man has no calf muscles, and therefore, no fatigue of his calf muscles. Also, The prosthetic legs that many "diff-able" athletes use have been specially designed to mimic the legs of a cheetah, one of the fastest animals in the kingdom. What if someone next created a prosthetic arm to mimic that of a grizzly bear and used it to win a shot put competition?
I just don't want to look up 50 years from now and see a Robot Olympics where the gold medalists are those that have the best performance enhancing technology on their side (or on their bodies). More than any sporting event, the Olympics are supposed to be the greatest human accomplishments.
Ok, I know David here runs marathons. I can't, but I used to be an athlete in high school and sprinting was my thing; but you don't need to have been or be an athlete to understand the radically different --and unnatural-- physicality of running on those blades.
The man had to learn how to find a whole different center of gravity in his body to be able to not only move his legs, but then crouch and get into the position you need to be in order to sprint --which is totally different from marathon running. The blades look like cheetah legs but that doesn't mean they are better than human legs anyway. Again, he had to learn how to walk again and then to also run and not just run but sprint!
Again, the onus is on his ability to overcome the physics of the prosthetics. To be able to do that AND on an Olympian level is quite a remarkable accomplishment. Yet, if advantage a la HGH is the concern, then obviously, anything bionic should be disqualified.
BTW : There are a lot of "enhancements" that athletes go through that do not involve HGH. I mean, if HGH is not going to be allowed, can we talk about athletes using lyposuction to reduce their body fat? Isn't that an unfair competitive advantage? How about swimmers who laser all their body hair? Or how about long-distant runners who use hypnosis?
There's a lot enhancing happening that is not covered by the bans.
I do not believe that David nor I mentioned sterioids or HGH in our comments. However, the fact that our words caused you to bring up that issue, makes me think that it hit close to home.
I think that it is remarkable that Oscar was able to learn to balance, walk, run, and sprint at a such a high level, but what is then stopping an athlete from learning to balance, walk, run, and then jump on dynamically designed legs to win a high jump competition? I do not think this and my previous shotput example are in the same category as lyposuction, laser hair removal, or hypnosis.
I hope that we can get some additional reader's opinions on this issue
I agree that HGH/steroids is another category altogether, but I think the point of Evan's and my comments were more about the implications of this move.
The point is that competitions are just that: competitions. They're not "everyone's a winner" love-ins. The Oscar Pisorius case might be acceptable given the specifics of his prosthetic legs and the event in which he competes, but again, where do we draw the line?
Think of all the physical issues that runners deal with that Pisorius doesn't have to: shin splints, fractured metatarsals, ACL damage, a torn Achilles tendon, and plantar fasciitis, not to mention the impact of three times your body weight on all those little bones and the myriad muscles throughout your lower legs and feet each time you hit the pavement.
And to clarify, yes, I run marathons, but I also run shorter races and do speed work in my training. I run 10Ks at a 5:40 pace, which isn't a leisurely jog. So I'm aware of the differences between sprinting and distance running.
But my running has nothing to do with it. This is about the future of sports in general, and the spirit of serious, genuine competition that makes sports interesting. In order for a race between Oscar Pisorius and someone with natural legs to be interesting and competitive, there will need to be a governing body that determines the exact point at which technological "aids" like prosthetic legs give the athlete an unfair advantage.
And how on earth will that point be determined? This is truly a can of worms.