Oscar Pistorius and Olympics

[Deleted]

What is comptetition if some use doping and some has prosthesis good enough to beat other atheletes?
Technology evolves every year and one day the prothesis will be better than normal legs. This I think is a very good thing don't get me wrong. But is this even close to "fair comptetion" and doent it kinda carry double standards? In all goodness and for science it's nice thing to get him into the games, but to win any medals..?

What are your thoughts on this?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/oly...World-Cup.html


"London 2012 Olympics is not about winning medals for me"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oly...ls-for-me.html

[Twoflower]

To keep competition fair, i think we would need a separate cathegory for "tuned" prothesis.

[Jager]

Honestly i can't see them keeping them out for much longer, there are so many injured service men and woman from the UK and the States that more and more of them will be getting into this kind of thing, and the very purpose of athletics is to test yourself against the best, so being a dude with prosthetic limbs, the obvious challenge is to be the guy that can beat someone with normal legs.

Sure at some point technology is going to be so advanced that prosthetic's are superior to natural limbs, but i don't see that being any time soon, and it would be a simple matter of limiting the technology allowed in sports to that of equal performance on average to normal limbs.

[Nengal]

I think it is completely unfair for him to compete with 'normal' people. I believe he has rights and whatnot, but sprinting is all amount speed and power and he gets more of both with prosthetic legs. Less weight for more spreed and more of a spring force with the bending of the material.

I don't think people are just going to go chop their legs off so they can sprint faster and I think he deserves to compete because he is obviously talented, but it still isn't fair to the others. They need either a special category for people such as him or they could let him run, but disqualify him so he can't receive medals. (or give him a special medal if he wins.) This is a really complex issue and I'd like to see a good solution to this.

[Pert]

I don't think that Olympic competition should allow prosthesis or doping, it's contrary to the spirit of the games.

[Twoflower]

He is competing in the paralimpics, for all I have read in the article. Would be kinda hard to ban prothesis there...

And no. Handicapped bepople who wear prothesis dont compete in the normal races. If that means that one day the paralimpics races are faster than the races in the normal event, so be it. But dont mix the two.

Also, no matter what, he wont beat Bolt. So it doesnt matter that much

Edit : ok i just read that he wants to start at the normal olimpics. I would not let him. Noboy should be allowed to compete at both, the paralimpics and the normal events.

another edit : from the article, it does not seem like he is doing THAT good, anyway. He got into the semifinals at the able-bodied world championship, and the silver medal he won in 4x400 team race, he didnt even run in the final.

[Primaliron]

It's a tough question. Do we ban people who live in extreme high altitudes for having more red blood cells than people who live at sea level? Or do we let lower altitude athletes blood dope? There are a lot of things that can make a competition unfair.

I will say this, I gotta give the guy props for learning to balance on those things, especially for sprinting. With so many years of martial arts I have learned to appreciate the fine motor movements in my feet that allow me to shift my weight in competition. I would dare say he deserves the chance to compete, just to see what he can do. Sure he's running on carbon-fiber springs, but I don't see any lateral control other than some excellent control over one's center of gravity.