Slashdot Mirror
World's First Cybernetic Athlete To Compete
Tufriast writes "The world's first mechanically augmented athlete, Oscar Pistorius, will now compete against unaugmented peers on behalf of South Africa. He'll be running in the 400m and 4x400m relay at the World Athletics 2011 Championships. Pistorius, a double leg amputee, has had special leg blades crafted for him that allow him to compete against his peers. He's fought hard to prove they provide no advantage, and according to IAAF they do not. This should be a very interesting race to watch. His nickname: The Blade Runner."
Augmented from his previous state of having no lower legs to having blades.
I wonder whats [sic] changed?
Whinging and whining and Political Correctnes (TM).
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
I put it down more to the fact that he now has an AWESOME nickname.
I can see it now:
Previously
Spokesman: "Hey guys, Oscar Pistorius wants permission to race in the Olympics, do we let him in?"
Olympic Committee: "Meh."
Now
Spokesman: "Hey guys, The Blade Runner wants permission to race in the World Championships."
World Athletic Committee: "Oh hell yeah!"
I'm a South African. He has been competing against able-bodied athletes for ages now. It's not news. A discussion on Slashdot as to whether the blades are an unfair advantage over other athletes will be much more interesting.
...runners with natural ankles and feet.
I admire the guy's tenacity (double amputee at 11 months and still played rugby growing up) but I recall seeing him competing a few years ago in Europe (some track meet in Rome iirc) and he was no where near the fitness level of the other atheletes and yet was qualifying for heats (in other words - he was 'heavy' at the time.)
Now unless this is an unfortunate coincidence between the potentially fastest human ever having his legs amputated as a baby, it is an unfair advantage. The IAAF, contrary to the OP's assertion, claim that it provides him a clear and obvious advantage mechanically and say they have the data to back it up...
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I'd guess he can feel the impact with the floor through the stump, and what more feedback do you need?
If not good enough, what is the correct term for them?
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
If he wins a lot then he will be declared as having an unfair advantage, and if he loses (or just average) he will be declared as having no advantage.
There's an argument that, on one hand, because he doesn't have to drag along the extra weight of lower legs, feet, and shoes, and his prostheses return energy very efficiently, that he might have an energetic advantage. On the other hand, he's missing a lot of musculature that ordinarily contributes power to forward progression, so he ought to be at an energetic disadvantage.
One of the most complete studies of this question, in this particular athlete, was not published until 2009 http://jap.physiology.org/content/107/3/903.long Unfortunately too late to contribute to the Olympics decision.
I've never understood the nigh-jesuitical levels of logic chopping(with not infrequent descent into mere hand-waving) that go on surrounding "fair" and "unfair" advantages in high level sports.
You've got a tiny number of heavily selected freaks of nature, endowed by various quirks of heredity with highly atypical phenotypes, augmented by years or decades of carefully designed training, controlled diet, etc. whose handlers cry out every time somebody has the temerity to shoot a little synthetic testosterone instead of just expressing freakish amounts of it naturally "Oh, no! We have to set a good example for the kids! Professional athletes are just regular folks who get a good night's rest and eat their wheaties!". Similar things come up with, say, hemoglobin concentrations: Does your blood contain more iron than most steel alloys because your ancestors were the spacesuit people who live at 50,000 feet above sea level? No problem, come right in! Does your blood contain more iron than most steel alloys because your doctor has been extracting and re-injecting it? Banhammer!
In 2008, they only measured him running in a straight line, this time they looked at a complete 400m race. They concluded that he's at a disadvantage at the start and in every corner, and thus for the complete race he's not at an "unfair advantage".
That, and perhaps the fact that he's no threat - his personal best on any distance (100m, 200m, 400m) is about 2 seconds behind the World Record.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
No, the question is whether it gives him an advantage over his unaugmented and unamputated self. If you can design the prosthetics to any level of performance, up to and including superior performance to your competitors, It doesn't really make it "more fair" to choose 80th percentile or 90th percentile or 50th percentile level performance. It's not really a contest at that point, but a demo.
Really, what they should do is offer a separate category of competition: "open" and "natural". In the "open" contests any competitor should be able to use any contraption they choose (including nothing), as long as there is no stored energy at the start of the competition and/or no net change in energy at the end of the competition.
This rule would take care of the problem where a jetpack full of rocket fuel would change the very nature of a road race, but spring-feet even though they need to be compressed somewhat at the start might be acceptable.
In fact, we've already got machine augmented races using just those sort of rules: NASCAR and speed skating both follow the above model.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
This reminds me of an assignment I was given in high school English class: the book we were to study that year was Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms". Prior to starting the book, the teacher asked that we write an essay outlining our expectations of the book, based solely on the title. Well, I had no idea what the hell the book would be about - all I could come up with was a future in which superior, articficial limbs became widely available, and once a person's growth stopped, they'd have their natural limbs hacked off and replaced with the better artificial limbs in a ceremony called, "A Farewell to Arms!" The teacher gave me an "A+", but looked at me funny the rest of the year...
I will be competing in the 400m and 4x400m relay using my specially crafted Chevy Cavalier. It's a manual transmission, so the engine computer won't give me an unfair advantage.
I for one welcome our new cybernetic..... peers?
Collector's Edition
That, and perhaps the fact that he's no threat - his personal best on any distance (100m, 200m, 400m) is about 2 seconds behind the World Record.
He might have been sandbagging it all this time. Can you imagine the splash if he actually wins?
Set your phasers on "funky"!
Just like how Lance Armstrong had a 50% testicle mass advantage. Unfair!
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
What's next, calling a peg-legged pirate a cyborg because his wooden leg is "cybernetic"? Then we send him to ninja school and we have "cyborg pirate ninja".
Great! Then we just need to kill him and bring him back to have the legendary Ninja Zombie Pirate Robot!
Something tells me he would be considerably slower without them.
Springs are not legs. Hence, he should not compete against athletes with legs.
There should be another class for athletes like him.
Perhaps also an open class, that allows any enhancements once can think of: drugs, surgery, doping, springs... game on.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The issue is that it isn't a level playing field, or at least that's how it looks. I think there is more study necessary, but this definitely sets a dangerous precedent if he really does have an advantage due to the prosthesis. The Olympics have already slid way too far down the technological superiority path for my comfort, allowing for prosthesetic enhancements and such is not good.
All the talk about his augmented legs, and not one photo in that article of said legs. That's WAY too PC when the augmentations themselves are the story.
I8-D