Slashdot Mirror
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."
...to all athletes that have to drag their lower legs at each step, and not having the benefit of springlike limbs.
Since they can't compete with Black Mesa, now they're in the sporting equipment business?
Look out Nike.
Sweet. Now I'm gonna go get my left arm hacked off and get a harpoon launcher installed for the javelin throw.
Or, to put it in a way slashdot understands...
1: Get amputation(s).
2: Get prosthetics with a mechanical advantage over mere flesh.
3: ???
4: Profit!
Someday, we'll look back at this event, with the power of hindsight and wonder how we failed to see the Cyborg War coming.
I personally think this is the right decision. While obviously there is a line where replacement turns into enhancement, unless it's clearly crossed I'm in favor of letting everybody who has the ability compete. The IAAF did not show that there was enhancement (and even so, his best 400m time of 46.56s is over a second off the Olympic qualifying time of 45.55s).
My favorite part, where the panel finds that the IAAF biased the testing against him, and then told the press they were DQ'ing him before voting on it is here: 60. At this stage, in the Panel's view, the process began to go "off the rails". The correspondence between the IAAF nad Prof. Bruggemann shos that his instructions were to carry out the testing only when Mr Pistorius was running in a straight line after the acceleration phase. By the time that the IAAF commissioned the Cologne tests it was known that this was the part of the race in which Mr Pistorius usually ran at his fastest.
61. [...] IAAF's officials must have known that, by excluding the start and the acceleration phase, the results would create a distorted view of Mr Pistorius' advantages and/or disadvantages. [...]
62. The stori is not enhances by the fact that Dr. Robert Gailey, the scientist nominated by Mr Pistorius [...] was effectively "frozen out" to such an extent that he declined to attend the Cologne tests. He was informed that he would be allowed to attend only as an observer, with no input on the testing protocol or on the analysis.
68. The impression of prejudgement is also enhanced by the fact that Dr. Locatelli and other IAAF officials told the press before the vote was taken that Mr Pistorius would be banned from IAAF sanctioned events.
70. In the Panel's view, the manned in which the IAAF hendled the situation of MR Pistorius in the period from July 2007 to January 2008 fell short of the high standards that the international sporting community is entitield to expect from a federation such as the IAAF.
Artificial limbs, I see that. Now what is with someone who had laser surgery on his eyes so he/she can see better ? Would you ban that person from a shooting match ? Even if he/she still can't see better than a top athlete ? If the person can see on par ? Or better ?
In the end, the questions we should ask ourselves probably are not about fairness but about the purpose of such games.
clearly these artificial limbs store kinetic energy in a radically different way. the biomechanics are obviously different. he's using different muscle groups. watch a video of him, and he clearly starts off slower than everyone else, and then speeds up a lot faster than everyone else: he's running on springs
god bless the guy, he's a phenomenal athlete. but he shouldn't be allowed to compete with runners with real feet. he's playing checkers when everyone else is playing blackjack. what he is doing is just not the same sport as what the other guys on the track are doing. and so he shouldn't compete with them. not because he doesn't deserve to just because he doesn't have feet, but simply because he's playing a different biomechanical game
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Ever watch that stupid robot battle show?
The O'Reilly factor?
Monstar L
I'll have a Sybian installed on mine.
You run on bicycles??
...if they're letting regular athletes compete in the disabled categories as well. After all, what's good for the goose...
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
the issue isn't this guy.....the issue is the precedent it sets. /. should be completely onboard with the olympic committe. In 50 years we WILL have cyborg legs....should that be allowed in the olympics?
I want a separate olympics.......an entertain me monkey olympics.
Look, I wasn't born with legs that can run at Olympic sprinter speeds either. Why should this guy get a free pass when I don't just because he was born with a birth defect? Envy? Maybe (probably) but I was a pretty good athlete many moons ago (yes a few of us are here on Slashdot... save your insults) and I would have liked a shot at the Olympics too. While he's not cheating (I greatly admire what he's accomplished) I think there is a double standard here. Most of us are not born with the ability to be Olympic athletes. That's supposedly the entire point. Perhaps not anymore?
A friend of mine wrestled in high school and likes to tell the story about the toughest match he ever had. His opponent was an amputee: one arm missing. This gave him several advantages.
- his weight class was effectively lowered
- many moves would became ineffective against him (you can't grab an arm if it isn't there).
- years of living with one arm had made that arm very, very strong. This combined with the weight class issue meant that his arm was generally absurdly stronger that his opponent's.
- surprise. Most folks had no experience wrestling a one-armed opponent and were not prepared. It changed the game.
Of course, there were also disadvantages. Many moves require two arms, and his armless side was a zone he could not reach into. My friend was able to capitalize on this, attacking from the armless side. In the end, my friend won, but not easily.
All this without prosthetics even.
Do I think this guy and an unfair advantage? Well no. But it is not an easy situation to analyze.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/sports/baseball/20surgery.html The procedure is commonly known as Tommy John surgery, named after the former major league pitcher on whom it was first performed in 1974. The surgery has become so reliable, with a success rate of 80 to 85 percent, that it has prolonged the careers of hundreds of major leaguers. About one in seven pitchers in the major leagues this season has had the surgery.
Yet, several leading orthopedists say there are some troubling aspects to the procedure. First, it is becoming more commonplace among teenage pitchers who are injuring their arms through overuse at what surgeons call an alarming rate.
Second, the surgery's reliability has spawned misconceptions that a healthy arm can be enlivened by the surgery and that the procedure will increase an injured pitcher's velocity, making him better than ever.
The success of the surgery, and the resulting myths, are prompting young pitchers with marginal injuries, or overly optimistic assessments of their talent, to push for Tommy John surgery when they might not have in the past, doctors said.
Dr. Petty mentioned one patient, a minor leaguer whose elbow injury did not appear to warrant surgery, who later trumped up his symptoms and had the procedure performed by another physician.
One of them was Jeff Hughes, 18, who will pitch at Austin Peay State University beginning this fall. Nick Hiter, who has coached Hughes, said the pitcher's father, Pete Hughes, once asked him: " 'What about that Tommy John surgery? I hear it makes you throw harder. If it works, we'd consider it.' "