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World's First Cybernetic Athlete To Compete

Posted by timothy on from the no-respect-for-hearing-aids-or-pacemakers dept.

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."

15 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Re:English... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Augmented from his previous state of having no lower legs to having blades.

  2. Re:Link by SniperJoe · · Score: 3, Funny

    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!"

  3. Very very old news by hedleyroos · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Very very old news by kryten · · Score: 3, Informative

      Or you could just read these two discussions that we've already had:
      http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/08/01/17/1947215/Prosthetic-Limbed-Runner-Disqualified-from-Olympic-Games
      http://science.slashdot.org/story/08/05/16/210229/Amputee-Sprinter-Wins-Olympic-Appeal-to-Compete

  4. Scientifically shown to provide advantage over... by Assmasher · · Score: 4, 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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  5. Opinions Will Be Based On Whether He Wins by s31523 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:Link by tburkhol · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  7. A strange game... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!

    1. Re:A strange game... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      A great many athletes end up horribly unhealthy. Some of the more adventurous doping can chew you up quickly and unpleasantly; but high-level athletic performance will grind you down good and hard in the long run.

      The one where even "what you were born with" seems to break down into pure handwaving is Women's high-level stuff. All the really weird phenotypes show up there: XYYs, Chimeras, burly intersex specimens of various flavors, all sorts of obscure genetic and phenotypic curiosities that definitely aren't XY males; but really, really rub people the wrong way as "women"...

    2. Re:A strange game... by itsdapead · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      The underlying problem is the idea of "high level sports", "professional athletes", massive sponsorship deals and huge capital pork projects to host athletics events. If it was just a case of the misty-eyed wholesome self-improvement aspect of sport for sport's sake then it would be petty to argue about such things and there would be less incentive to cheat. As it is, though, these are professionals (highly paid in some cases) trying to defend their livelihood against "unfair competition".

      "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!".

      Of course there's nothing particularly natural about regular folks who eat their wheaties (or anything else that doesn't grow on trees in the Rift Valley), had their childhood diseases cured and can expect to live 40 years beyond the MTBF of the original homo sapiens. Should we stop worrying and embrace the PharmaLympics, and treat anybody who wrecks their health with performance-enhancing drugs the same way we treat those of us who have wrecked our health by sitting behind a desk all day and living on pizza and coffee for the sake of our career?

      That'd be Wheaties(tm) - fortified with iron and vitamins, official breakfast cereal of the BigSportsTornament(r)(tm)(c) by the way.

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  8. A Farewell to...Legs? by LibRT · · Score: 5, Funny

    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...

  9. Me too! by davidbrit2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  10. Oblig... by twistedsymphony · · Score: 3, Funny

    I for one welcome our new cybernetic..... peers?

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  11. Re:Scientifically shown to provide advantage over. by outsider007 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just like how Lance Armstrong had a 50% testicle mass advantage. Unfair!

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  12. No advantage? by cmay · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Something tells me he would be considerably slower without them.