As discussed during an episode of Radio Crass, Oscar Pistorius (aka “The Blade Runner”) is a South African runner with a disability: he’s a double amputee with both legs removed above the knee. He can run by wearing not mere prosthetic legs, but special curved carbon fibre “blades”. And with those blades, he has not only been able to run faster than any other man in the history of the Paralympics but fast enough to qualify for the real Olympics. In fact, he made the semi-finals of the 400m race at the recent London Olympics, but came last in his semi-final (although had he repeated his best time, he would have made the final).
The fact that Pistorius was allowed to run on his blades at the Olympics was a saga in itself, which I’ll recap briefly below, but it is an event at the London Paralympics (and Pistorius’ own words after that event) which may well prevent Pistorius or any other “blade runner” following in his footsteps. Pistorius finished 2nd in the 200m race, and then claimed that the man who beat him and the bronze medallist gained an advantage over him by changing their blades.
For why this matters, one needs to look at why Pistorius was allowed to run in the Olympics at all. Many people, not unreasonably, suggested that running on carbon fibre blades and running on flesh and blood legs were simply different sports. Not comparable. And that if a man without legs running on carbon fibre blades ended up being capable of beating flesh-and-blood legs (and certainly Pistorius could beat all but the top 20 or so runners in the world), what then? Were the world’s fastest men and women expected to become cyborgs?
Pistorius’ team sought to show that the blade was different but equal to a natural leg, and also argued that Pistorius’ times were clearly so good because of Pistorius’ running ability and not the blades because no other blade-wearing runner was setting times as fast as Pistorius. An IAAF expert who performed bio-mechanical testing on Pistorius found that Pistorius’s limbs used 25% less energy than runners with complete natural legs to run at the same speed, and that they led to less vertical motion combined with 30% less mechanical work for lifting the body. Pistorius claimed that there were disadvantages to offset these advantages, and the Court of Arbitration for Sport accepted that the IAAF report was not conclusive enough. The IAAF chose to back down rather than perform further tests. Cynics suggested that the back down may have been because:
- Pistorius was great for publicity, a highly endorsed athlete and an inspiration to millions;
- The IIAF was somewhat gun-shy from the whole Caster Semenya issue and being forced at court-point to allow her to run as a woman, and didn’t want to go through that again so soon, especially as;
- Pistorius wasn’t a real chance to open up a can of worms by winning a medal, and as he argued himself, there was only one Pistorius running Olympics-worthy times on the blades.
Now all of that has changed.
In the 200m men’s final in the T43/44 class at the London Paralympics (the double amputees race, to put it bluntly), Pistorius came second to Alan Oliviera of Brazil. He’s no longer a solo act (albeit he still holds the world record). That by itself probably wouldn’t doom the concept of athletes in the Olympics with prosthetics. This is not the Highlander, there can be more than one as long as there’s not a hundred. But then…
“We’re not racing a fair race here,” Pistorius said “If you look at videos from last year, Alan was shorter than me but now he’s taller than me. I don’t take away from their performances. I think they’re great athletes, but it’s clear that these guys have very long strides. Alan’s a great athlete he’s always been up there among the top. I think he’s a terrific guy and a terrific athlete but he’s never run a 21 second race and I don’t think he’s a 21 second athlete.
Point made: It IS the blades.
Pistorius obviously feels that his particular blades (still made to the same specifications as the originals he acquired as a teenager in 1996) are “fair”. He has made a point of not trying to upgrade them- indeed, under the terms under which the IAAF allow him to run in the Olympics, he’s not allowed to- but the same rules are not in place for the Paralympics and as a result one of his competitors had demonstrated his worst nightmare: a victory granted by improved prosthetics (legal within the Paralympic rules, it must be said) rather than purely by running power.
Should Alan Oliviera and others try to join Pistorius in the Olympics in Rio, sporting administrators will once again be left with the very difficult question of whether a natural leg and an artificial leg can be truly equal but different, and thanks to Pistorius’ own outburst upon losing the 200m it is very possible that they won’t reach the same answer as they did last time.
(Picture via Wikimedia Commons)
