In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline Links: ‘Olympic Dream Stays Alive, on Synthetic Legs’
Reaction: Pistorius looks to 2012
Key Player: Oscar Pistorius
Background Links: Are prosthetic legs an unfair advantage?
Opinion & Analysis: How will prosthetics affect the future of sports?
Historical Context: Casey Martin and transgendered athletes
Related Topics: Technology and athletics
Reference Material: Ossur prosthetics, IAAF and the 2008 Olympics
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AP/Denis Farrell
Champion runner and double amputee
Oscar Pistorius
Champion runner and double amputee
Oscar Pistorius
Amputee Sprinter Eligible to Compete in Olympics
by
findingDulcinea Staff
An international court has ruled that amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius is eligible to compete in the Olympics.
30-Second Summary
He calls himself "The Fastest Man on No Legs," and now 21-year-old Oscar Pistorius is eligible to compete in the Olympics, having successfully challenged the idea that his prosthetic legs give him an unfair advantage in competition.
The situation has highlighted the increasingly murky ethics in the relationship between technology and athletics. At a time when it's legal for baseball players to wear high-powered contacts to improve their vision at the plate and endurance athletes to sleep in hyperbaric chambers to up their red blood cell counts, the fairness of technological aids has become a prominent question in sports.
Previously, the International Association of Athletics Federation had decided that Pistorius's high-tech legs offered him an unfair advantage over sprinters with natural legs, making him ineligible for Beijing.
Pistorius called the decision a form of discrimination, citing the admittance of transgender athletes into the 2004 Olympics as an argument for his case.
With the 2008 Beijing Olympics approaching in August, Pistorius is a second short of meeting the men's Olympic qualifying standard of 45.55 seconds in the 400 meters. With little chance of qualifying for this year's games, Pistorius has set his sights on the 2012 Olympics in London.
The situation has highlighted the increasingly murky ethics in the relationship between technology and athletics. At a time when it's legal for baseball players to wear high-powered contacts to improve their vision at the plate and endurance athletes to sleep in hyperbaric chambers to up their red blood cell counts, the fairness of technological aids has become a prominent question in sports.
Previously, the International Association of Athletics Federation had decided that Pistorius's high-tech legs offered him an unfair advantage over sprinters with natural legs, making him ineligible for Beijing.
Pistorius called the decision a form of discrimination, citing the admittance of transgender athletes into the 2004 Olympics as an argument for his case.
With the 2008 Beijing Olympics approaching in August, Pistorius is a second short of meeting the men's Olympic qualifying standard of 45.55 seconds in the 400 meters. With little chance of qualifying for this year's games, Pistorius has set his sights on the 2012 Olympics in London.
Headline Links: ‘Olympic Dream Stays Alive, on Synthetic Legs’
An international court has ruled that South African double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius is eligible to compete in the Beijing summer Olympic Games, making him the “first amputee to successfully challenge the notion that his carbon-fiber prosthetics gave him an unfair advantage,” reported The New York Times. The ruling underscores an ongoing debate over technology in sports.
Source: The New York Times
Pistorius said he cried tears of joy after the ruling. “I am ecstatic. It is a battle that has been going on for far too long. It's a great day for sport. I think this day is going to go down in history for the equality of disabled people,” he said.
Source: ESPN
Reaction: Pistorius looks to 2012
Pistorius is unlikely to qualify for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, as his personal best 400-meter time is a second slower than the Olympic qualifying standard. He still hopes to qualify for Beijing, but he's setting his sights on the 2012 Olympics in London. "Realistically speaking," he said, "I have a better chance of qualifying there."
Source: ESPN
Key Player: Oscar Pistorius
Pistorius was born in 1986 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Because he was born without fibulas, one month before his first birthday both his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles. Pistorius would take his first baby steps six months later on fiberglass pegs. Wired magazine provides a biography of Pistorius, as well as a video of him sprinting and a graphic comparison of carbon-fiber prosthetic legs to natural legs.
Source: Wired
ESPN's E60 profiled Pistorius's fight for Olympicc eligibility in a 10-minute documentary piece.
Source: ESPN
The Final Sprint offers an exclusive audio interview with Oscar Pistorius.
Source: The Final Sprint
Background Links: Are prosthetic legs an unfair advantage?
In September of 2004, Pistorius won gold in the 200-meter sprint at the Paralympics, beating American sprinters Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure and setting a new world record in the process. However, the victory met with controversy, as Pistorius's opponents accused him of lengthening his stride with unfairly long prosthetics.
Source: Slate
Oscar Pistorius's bid for the 2008 Beijing Olympics has raised interesting philosophical questions about the place of technology in sports. In particular, if athletes using artificial limbs can run faster or jump higher than able-bodied athletes, will the nature of sports change?
Source: The New York Times
Opinion & Analysis: How will prosthetics affect the future of sports?
ESPN writer Eric Adelson feels that “keeping the disabled out of mainstream sports will hurt only sports itself.” Adelson envisions disabled veterans of war returning to the U.S. and wanting top-notch replacement limbs. “Those vets will take their prosthetics to the blacktop and the field,” he said.
Source: ESPN
George Dvorsky of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies writes that the Pistorius issue "is a snap-shot into the future of sports. Governing bodies will have much more to contend with than just performance enhancing drugs. Technological endowments, particularly those that are cybernetic in nature, are poised to upset the apple cart that is professional sports."
Source: Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
Historical Context: Casey Martin and transgendered athletes
In 2001, American pro golfer Casey Martin successfully sued the Professional Golf Association for the right to use a golf cart during competition. Casey's opponents considered his cart an unfair advantage that allowed him to bypass the fatigue experienced by the other golfers required to walk the links. Martin was afflicted with a rare birth defect called Klippel Trenaunay Weber syndrome, and won his case under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Source: ESPN Magazine
Pistorius argued that the International Olympic Commission's 2004 decision to allow transgender athletes to compete in the Olympics is all the more reason to allow him to compete. But, as is the case now, the decision about transgender athletes didn't come without controversy.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Related Topics: Technology and athletics
Athletic enhancements
Swimming is facing a controversy over Speedo's LZR Racer swimsuit, which has helped swimmers repeatedly break world records. Some swimmers consider the suit a performance-enhancer that gives its wearers an unfair advantage. Despite efforts to ban the suit, it will likely be used in the Beijing Olympics.
Source: findingDulcinea
Tiger Woods got eye surgery to improve his vision, Mark McGwire wore custom-designed contacts so he could have 20/10 vision while batting, and now more and more athletes are getting similar vision enhancements. Slate's wonders why performance enhancing surgery is legal, but performance enhancing drugs are prohibited.
Source: Slate
Advances in prosthetics
Surgeons may soon be able to fuse prosthetic limbs directly to the skeletons of patients without running the risk of infection. Researchers at University College London pioneered the technique, calling the early trials "very promising."
Source: The BBC
Reference Material: Ossur prosthetics, IAAF and the 2008 Olympics
The prosthetic leg used by Pistorius is called the Cheetah, and is manufactured by the Iceland-based company Össur. The Össur Web site has information about the Cheetah and many other prosthetics and bionics products.
Source: Ossur
The Monaco-based International Association of Athletics Federation is the world governing body for track and field whose prohibition of technological aids such as springs and wheels had previously barred Pistorius from competing in IAAF-sanctioned events and the 2008 Olympics.
Source: International Association of Athletics Federation
The official Web site of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, in which Pistorius hopes to compete, provides news, schedules, statistics and more.
Source: 2008 Olympics Web site
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