Last Sunday, Paralympic favourite Oscar Pistorius was beaten to the gold medal in the T44 200-metre final by Brazilian Alan Fonteles Oliveira. Pistorius called the race unfair, saying Oliveira ran on excessively long blades that boosted his stride length.
To comply with regulations laid down by the (IPC), athletesā prostheses must not convey an āunrealistic enhancementā. But working out exactly where enhancement begins is tricky. Officials can use limb measurements from able-bodied non-disabled people, and guess how long the legs of double amputees should be by looking at their body measurements, such as the distance between the sternum and the fingertips.
To give themselves the best advantage within the rules, double amputees are likely to pick prostheses as long as is legally allowed. Oliveira three weeks ago. Despite the extension, however, that Pistoriusās strides were 2.2 metres long on average, whereas Oliveiraās only averaged 2 metres.
Advertisement
āI can see where [Pistorius] is coming from,ā says , a sports engineer at Sheffield Hallam University in the UK. āYou can tell by looking at [the athletes] that they canāt really stand up ā it seems theyāve taken their heights to unnatural levels.ā
The IPC stood by its decision to approve Oliveiraās blades. All the athletes participating in the race were checked before its start, the on 3 September. āAll were within the regulations outlined in the IPC Athletics Classification Handbook,ā the committee said. āThe problem isnāt [Oliveiraās] prosthesis,ā says Graham Arthur, a member of the IPC classification committee. āThatās the way sport works ā itās unpredictable. On the night, [Oliveira] just performed better.ā Nonetheless, the committee has agreed to talk to Pistorius at a later date about his concerns.
Double standards?
Others have less time for Pistoriusās argument, pointing out that the sprinter is thought to have has deliberately kept his blades shorter than the maximum limit in order to also qualify for the Olympics. Pistorius had previously argued that his blades donāt give him an advantage over his able-bodied competitors.
āUnfortunately, Pistorius has invalidated his reasons for being able to run in the Olympics as well as the Paralympics,ā says , also at Sheffield Hallam University. āTo run in the Olympics, his team claimed that he had no advantage over non-amputees. Pistorius is now saying that you just need to lengthen your prosthetics to go faster ā something non-amputees cannot do.ā
James agrees: āPistorius was given the green light to run in the Olympics on the basis that his blades give him no advantage,ā he says. āHe seems to be devaluing his own argument.ā
