Amputee Sprinter Wins Olympic Appeal to Compete

Dr. Eggman writes "Oscar Pistorius, a 21-year-old South African double-amputee sprinter, has won his appeal filed with the Court of Arbitration for Sport. This overturns a ban imposed by the International Association of Athletics Federations, and allows Mr. Pistorius the chance to compete against other able-bodied athletes for a chance at a place on the South African team for the Beijing Olympics. He currently holds the 400-meter Paralympic world sprinting record, but must improve on his time by 1.01 seconds to meet the Olympic qualification standard. However, even if Pistorius fails to get the qualifying time, South African selectors could add Oscar to the Olympic 1,600-meter relay squad."

Comments

Re:inspiration v. tech

[bheer]

Replace "handicapped" with "black" above and you'll get a better perspective of what my views are.

In the 50s, whites couldn't and wouldn't go to black schools. Black children COULDN'T (but would if they could) go to white schools, because that's where the best schools were.

> In fact, if you're saying that a competition doesn't really count unless it involves able-bodied people

I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that competitions like the Olympics should be open to all humans, as long as they have not flouted the rules to get an unfair advantage.

As an aside, events like the Paralympics, or under-14s sports competitions, are not universal competitions, they are special events designed to highlight the abilities of certain groups of people. In fact the Olympics keeps this distinction for men and women, because *usually* women tend to be disadvantaged in terms of muscle mass, etc. It's not perfect, but it's a darn sight better than the old Olympic custom of not letting women participate at all. Anyway, while it's nice that handicapped folk have the option of competing in special events, wouldn't it be infinitely better to (assuming they qualified) let them compete in the actual mainstream event?

Especially since -- athletes have been using technology to improve their performance since, well, forever. Would you disqualify an archer for wearing glasses (Archery is IIRC an Olympic event)? Would you disqualify an athlete for wearing a pacemaker implant (assuming he got it for sound medical reasons and he's fit enough to perform?) If not, what's wrong with allowing a guy born without legs to wear blades?

All I see here is the old fear that somehow a guy with technology on his body is somehow "equal, but separate". And that's sad. It'll go away with time as people get comfortable with the technology in question (people with glasses face very little discrimination these days) but until then someone has to speak up for the rights of people for whom technological aids are a medical necessity.