Cheetahs & Olympics

I love the on-going debate about the definition of dis-abled and abled bodies and the use of prosthetic limbs in sports.

Double amputee South African paralympic champion, Oscar Pistorius, was banned from the Beijing Olympics because his prosthetic legs were deemed to give him an unfair advantage over his able-bodied rivals. The IAAF Council made the decision based on scientific tests done by the Institute of Biomechanics at the Cologne University. The tests reported that his running blades, known as "Cheetahs", gave him a 25% energy saving and a <10% energy loss in his artificial limbs versus normal sprinters at the same speed. Upon reaching a certain speed, running with prosthetics required less additional energy than natural limbs. The "Cheetahs" were deemed as technical running aids which contravened Olympic rules. Pistorius' paralympic world record for 400m is 46.34sec, way behind the world record of 43.18sec, and he had yet to achieve an Olympic qualifying time.

The debate surrounding the official recognition (or not) of prosthetics in world events such as Olympics smacked of hyppocrisy to me. "Sorry, you cannot race with us because you have no legs." and subsequently "Sorry, you cannot race with us because your legs are too good.". Was it because seemingly disabled athletes challenged our deep-seated belief that what appeared to be a handicap (and hence less-abled) might really be better-abled instead? There was no doubt that double amputees could rise to the occasions and in many instances, had outperformed their au naturale counterparts. Double amputees had summitted Everest (Mark Inglis in 2007), completed the Mother of Ironman in Kona (Scott Risby in 2006), and many more inspirational achievements. To date, the best of prosthetics had yet to match the records of the best of nature in absolute terms. If we could somehow discount nature to level it with the disabled challenges, the chasm, if any, might not be too wide.

So why not the Olympics? Each Olympic racer tells his/ her own story of sweat, blood and tears. Why not a double amputee as well?