

Double amputee cleared to race in the Olympics  - casemorton
http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/05/double-amputee-oscar-pistorius-will-race-in-the-london-olympics/

======
davidjohnstone
Unless the analysis in [http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/12/science-of-
sport-awa...](http://www.sportsscientists.com/2011/12/science-of-sport-awards-
controversy-of.html) is quite wrong, I can't see how he should be allowed to
compete. The story here is being cast as a win against bureaucracy, but
ignores the fact that he has significant mechanical and metabolic advantages
against able-bodied athletes.

Final paragraphs:

> The end result of this is that Pistorius was "cleared", based not on
> science, but on a legal process that was manipulated by science and the huge
> drive to permit Pistorius to run. And make no mistake, there is inspiration
> in the story.

> In fact, it got to the point where despite the science, I can appreciate the
> viewpoint of those who say "Sure, there is an advantage, but there's only
> one such athlete, and he's not running away with the gold medals, and so the
> good outweighs the bad, so let him compete despite that advantage".

> I disagree with that, but I can respect the opinion of those who believe it.
> What cannot be accepted, however, is the assertion that there is no
> advantage. Everything about the science points to the advantage, from the
> pacing strategy he uses, to the German-testing that found mechanical and
> metabolic differences, to the Texas testing which provided evidence of an
> athletic advantage.

> The science was clear, from the point of hypothesis, to the theory behind
> it, to the evidence. The deceit in the case, fueled by a willfully ignorant
> media who would rather portray as villains anyone who dares suggest what the
> science really says, is equally clear, to me at least.

~~~
baddox
What is the decision procedure for whether an advantage is unfair? Athletic
competition is always about physical inequalities among humans. Does your
decision procedure resort to the idea that certain things are "natural?" If
so, that's a feeble notion, since prosthetics are no more or less "natural"
than, say, rigorous training and diets or metal plates to fix a broken bone.

~~~
lusr
Physical inequalities - not mechanical.

~~~
baddox
I think mechanical inequalities are also physical inequalities.

------
jdietrich
Several comments in this thread relate to Pistorius' prosthetics and whether
they give him an unfair advantage.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport have ruled that there is no evidence that
his prosthetics constitute an unfair advantage over his preferred 400m
distance. The initial IAAF testing showed that he used less energy at full
speed, but this is not relevant to sprinting performance, which demands
maximum power output. All below-knee amputees are at a significant
disadvantage during the start and initial acceleration of the race, which is
vital in sprinting.

Personally, I think the most obvious evidence that these prosthetics do not
constitute an advantage is the times of other athletes using identical limbs.
Pistorius is whole seconds faster than his nearest rivals. If the limbs
constitute a meaningful advantage, then why is Pistorius so uniquely quick?

~~~
eggbrain
While his current prosthetic might not give him a great competitive advantage,
doesn't it seem like a slippery slope? 12 years from now, lets say there is a
breakthrough in prosthetic technology, one that gets rid of all the
disadvantages, and improves the advantages -- do we let those in, or do we say
"No, you can only use prosthetics from x years ago?"

~~~
sp332
This isn't really a slippery slope. It has been dealt with in other sports
repeatedly over the years. Competitive (sport) javelins have been re-
engineered several times to make them harder to throw after a few of them
ended up injuring spectators in the stadium! Heck even golf clubs have maximum
performance limitations. There's some trial-and-error involved but sports
generally converge on limitations they consider fair.

~~~
dasil003
Do you seriously not see the difference between sporting equipment and
prosthetic limbs?

~~~
msbarnett
As prosthetic limbs can be and are switched out for specialized versions
adapted to different scenarios, 'race limbs' are just another kind of sporting
equipment.

~~~
algorias
Except not all competitors have equal access to them, which is a huge
difference. Other sporting equipment is much less affected by this problem,
and disciplines eventually converge to an equilibrium point where all serious
athletes are using roughly equivalent tech.

------
jessriedel
Although I admire the guy, it doesn't make much sense to include him in the
Olympics. If he were actually good enough to compete for medals, then
everything would boil down to the results of the studies gauging the size of
his advantage/disadvantage (as linked by stupandaus below).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius#Dispute_over_pr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius#Dispute_over_prosthetics)

Track runners compete on tenths or even hundredths of a second, and it's silly
to think you could have a reasonable, objective decision on the type of
equipment he was allowed to use based off of the nebulous concept of an
"advantage".

~~~
brildum
Although less obvious, there are other areas in sport where these issues
currently exist.

One of the more recent controversies resulted in the ban of LZR Racer
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZR_Racer#FINA_rule_changes>), a swimsuit which
resulted in an abnormally high number of world records during the years it was
available.

Whats to say that track shoes can't have similar performance aiding effects?
It may be time for sporting officials to limit the equipment athletes can use.
NASCAR does this successfully -- they have stringent specifications regarding
the cars/parts that can be used to keep the races competitive.

~~~
roguecoder
And steroid after steroid has gone through similar processes; there is a
reason there are still world records from the 80s East Germany and the Soviet
Union. In less obvious advantages we have dietary supplements, training at
altitude or in altitude chambers, biomechanical analysis and direct muscle
stimulation. Every athletic competition is a balance between what technology
gets through and which doesn't. Most olympic athletes are already genetic
outliers; I'm sure sooner or later gene therapy will become a major issue.

The idea that athletics is purely a competition of body is a convenient
fiction, nothing more. It seems a shame to me to exclude people simply because
they challenge that fiction.

~~~
lusr
Just because you cannot set all variables outside the body to equal does not
mean you should have a free-for-all.

------
lifeformed
I'm surprised that everywhere I read, people are more interested in wondering
how much of an advantage his condition gives him, than considering that
perhaps it is a great disadvantage.

People are claiming things like, "oh, his heart has to pump less blood a
shorter distance." What about the fact that he has way less muscle, no toes,
feet, or ankles (which are all critical for balance and for sensing distances
and terrain), and that his body is being stressed in ways not intended. These
are huge, obvious disadvantages, and I don't see why they're seemingly
ignored.

Sure, the prosthetics can vary in mechanical advantage, but you could just
regulate those like any other sports equipment. But to say that not having
legs could even possibly be unfair for running is ridiculous and a bit
offensive.

~~~
karamazov
What if, instead of legs, he had electric wheels capable of going 30 miles per
hour? That would be a clear advantage.

------
Evernoob
I'm personally not in support of this decision regardless of whether or not
the prosthetics provide Oscar an advantage.

I think a sport such as a running race is a test in how fast the very best
people in the world can push the limits of the human body. Removing limbs and
replacing them with prosthetics while impressive does not fit that standard.

It's not a level playing field.

~~~
maxerickson
It doesn't particularly matter. History will remember the asterisk whether the
Olympic committee puts one down or not.

Perhaps the biggest question of fairness is that a person (or two) that
dedicates much of their life to training for athletic contests will not
receive the medal that they would have received had he been prevented from
competing.

------
pkulak
Whatever anyone thinks, I feel bad for this guy. Advantage or not, he's a hell
of an athlete, yet he can never accomplish anything without people questioning
it.

~~~
Jach
If he wins, people will be split over feeling happy for him and thinking he
only won because of his prosthetics. If he loses, the media will spin it as a
triumph of meat over machine.

------
DannoHung
I'll start believing that Pistorious has an unfair advantage when professional
athletes start hacking their limbs off.

~~~
sageikosa
I can easily imagine the Chinese or North Koreans sending a team of runners
that fit this exact description.

~~~
antoko
I think that says much more about you than it does the Chinese or North
Koreans.

~~~
sageikosa
Probably.

------
jcizzle
I think some of the comments are missing an understanding of sprinting, so I
will attempt to clarify:

There are four "pure" sprinting events, 60m (indoor only), 100m (outdoor
only), 200m, 400m.

On TV, you just see a person effortlessly "sprinting." However, the sprints
are actually very technical events. What you don't see is that each race is
comprised of four phases: beginning with an explosive start out of the blocks,
a drive phase, a transition phase, and finally a sprint phase.

The drive phase - which some commenters have concluded as Pistorius' weakness
- is where the athlete builds speed. It is characterized by a forward lean in
the athlete and powerful, "pulling" strides. At the elite level, an athlete
will remain in this phase for 30m-40m, depending on the length of the race and
the height of the athlete.

As the athlete builds speed, it becomes much harder to stay in this forward-
leaning position - their legs simply cannot keep up with their body. Thus,
they begin to transition into a different style of running. This is called the
transition phase - where the sprinter's body moves to from this leaning drive
phase into the tall and upright sprinting phase. This can be anywhere from
10-30m.

The drive and transition are important. Some time during these two phases, the
athlete will reach their maximum instantaneous speed. At no point after
reaching maximum speed will the athlete ever reach that speed again. Thus, the
race becomes "who can slow down the least."

The upright sprinting phase is where the athlete tries to maintain the speed
they built up during the drive phase until the end of the race. An athlete
will be upright, with the slightest of forward leans. Their legs are firing
straight up and down very quickly, trying to minimize the time spent on the
ground. The ability to do this correctly very much depends on an athlete's
"sprint endurance" - which is a completely different kind of endurance than,
say, running a mile.

So, on average, 90% of a 60m race is spent gaining speed, 50% of 100m race,
25% of a 200m race, and 12% of a 400m race. The race a sprinter chooses to run
depends on whether they are powerful and explosive (shorter races) or how
little speed they can lose while upright (longer races).

Here are two fun facts now that you know this information: 1\. Marion Jones
(who is a cheater) did not have the fastest top end speed out of her
contemporaries. She did, however, have the best ability to maintain speed. She
was a 100m Olympic Gold Medalist. 2\. The Olympic-level weight lifters will
outperform Olympic-level sprinters in the first 30m of a race.

There are some nuances to what what I've said that I won't bore you with (for
example, some 200m runners can perform a mini-drive on the curve to grab a bit
more speed for the straight), but the basic idea is that your sprint endurance
is crucial in EVERY sprint race except the 60m. You can make your own
conclusions about whether or not Pistorius is legit, but having run the 400m
at a high level for a number of years, I can tell you that not being able to
feel your calves or feet or have to use the energy required to make them move
would have been something I'd be interested in.

~~~
chernevik
Are there training advantages in immunity to injury below the lower knee? How
much training is generally constrained by the resilience of the foot and
ankle?

~~~
jcizzle
Injuries are a part I hadn't thought about. Common injuries in that part of
the body are: shin splints, achilles issues, plantar fasciitis, calf pull,
compartment syndrome, and stress fractures.

I know of at least two athletes for each injury who have either missed
training time, an entire season or a career. Injuries are incredibly common in
track and field: and make no mistake, there is no emotional-movie-style
strength that allows an athlete to overcome their injury due to sheer force of
will. Track and field is an 100% sport: if you aren't at 100%, you aren't
going to win. A lot of the sport is managing and preventing injury, especially
at the elite level.

While I would reason that "upper leg" injuries like hamstring, glute, hip and
quad pulls are more damning and common than "lower leg" injuries (especially
among men), and that upper body injuries like arms and abdomen are nearly
unheard of, being able to write off an entire class of injuries is a huge
bonus.

I also didn't mention strength over time benefits: the ability to have a
consistent power output of a critical part of your stride (the toe push) that
is unaffected by fatigue is very helpful.

------
stupandaus
There were studies done that showed that he gains some advantages from springs
in long, straight sections, but also has disadvantages in starting and
turning.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius#Dispute_over_pr...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius#Dispute_over_prosthetics)

------
mjor
Good for him, I guess, but does those springs not give him an advantage? How
would you even go about measuring that?

------
Someone
In some sense, all athletes use prosthetics. Humans aren't born with spikes,
and definitely not with asymmetrical ones optimized for making left turns
(especially important in the 200m, where one accelerates throughout the curve
of the track)

Amputees can take this to a new level. They can optimize the length of their
legs on the distance to run and their fitness. For now, we see that as
something that enables people, but I think this guy would not have been
allowed to take part in a 'regular' event if he had a real chance to win (the
wheelchair marathon is a separate event from the regular marathon for the same
reason)

~~~
simondlr
In regards to already accepted 'prosthetics' such as spikes and suits in
swimming, perhaps it should go back to the way the olympics started? I'm not
being facetious, but it is going to start cropping up more and more. They
don't have to be completely naked, but just covered up so that nothing a
person wears affects their performance.

------
mayneack
More detail in the full article: [http://www.nbcolympics.com/news-blogs/track-
and-field/pistor...](http://www.nbcolympics.com/news-blogs/track-and-
field/pistorius-among-those-added-to-south-african-team.html)

------
sxp
The whole notion of preventing unfair technical advantages in the Olympics is
outdated and stems from the fundamental attribution error [1]. The competition
is no longer primarily about the athlete but about the level of training they
have access to and the size of a country's pool of healthy candidates to
select from. Industrialized nations win the majority of medals [2] since they
have a large healthy population to select from and they can afford to train
those athletes and provide high quality equipment. Discriminating against
Pistorius would be as bad as discriminating against an Olympian because they
were rich enough to afford expensive coaches and equipment or banning Michael
Phelps because he won the genetic lottery which gave him his body structure.

It makes sense to ban certain performance enhancing methods such as illegal
steroids because they have severely negative side effects, but the Olympics
would be more fun if the rules were much looser. Let all the athletes have the
best training and equipment their sponsors can afford. There is little
difference between technology that reduces disadvantages such as lighter bikes
or shoes and technology that enhances advantages like low drag swimsuits or
cybernetic legs. Unless we want to genetically screen all our athletes to make
sure they were not born with any advantage and force them to use the same
training program and equipment, we should stop trying to compensates for
advantages and disadvantages and just do whatever results in the best
entertainment.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error> [2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-
time_Olympic_Games_medal_ta...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-
time_Olympic_Games_medal_table)

~~~
hackinthebochs
>The competition is no longer primarily about the athlete but about the level
of training they have access to and the size of a country's pool of healthy
candidates to select from.

Sure, if the unit under consideration is the country that gains the most
medals. But at the individual level, it is still very much about the athlete
and what the human body can accomplish.

------
AUmrysh
This is the sort of thing Deus Ex touches on. I think we should allow people
with prosthetics to perform in the olympics, but they should be judged against
other people with the same or similar prostheses. There's no reason we can't
accept the accomplishments of humans who have modified or artificial body
parts, but they should not be compared to the 'natural' human body. I imagine
if they had a separate set of events for cyborgs or humans with modified
bodies, people would enjoy those events as celebrations of technology.

In a way, all competitors in the olympics use prosthetics. The shoes that
runners use modify the function and behavior of the foot, the suits (banned or
unbanned) that swimmers wear modify the drag on the body, and even sports like
archery use the highest quality technologies for bows and arrows to provide
the highest competitive advantage. These body part replacements aren't much
different, and one day the prosthetics will be better than our natural body
parts (in some ways they already are).

------
anmol
For everyone claiming Oscar has a technology advantage, an expert committee
led by Hugh Herr (world leader in bio-mechatronics)[1,2] across scientists
from 6 universities, proved in 2008 that Oscar did NOT have any advantage.
This has been mostly a political battle.

[1] [http://www.media.mit.edu/news/releases/2008/05/study-
revives...](http://www.media.mit.edu/news/releases/2008/05/study-revives-
olympic-prospects-amputee-sprinter)

[2] [http://www.technologyreview.com/news/410167/amputee-gets-
a-s...](http://www.technologyreview.com/news/410167/amputee-gets-a-shot-at-
the-olympics/)

~~~
sageikosa
In every race someone has an advantage, otherwise every finish would be a tie.
The question is whether his mechanical advantage in one section is balanced by
his disadvantages in others, and whether this is fair to other runners.

Frankly, I have no dog in that fight; since I am not likely to be running that
race, nor am I on the Olympic Committee. I just find it interesting for
people's understanding athletics and fairness in general.

------
nsns
Good luck to him. The specs for his "legs" -
<http://www.ossur.com/?PageID=13462>

------
stcredzero
One should be able to develop rigid boots that couple to composite springs for
non amputees to run in a similar fashion. This would involve an effective
lengthening of the limbs. Maybe this is not an idea but a memory...

Search on YouTube for "Spring Shoes": They're called "Skyrunners."

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_rqRknJ7N0>

I wonder if short people equipped with these would be competitive with bicycle
messengers? Apparently they confer a significant efficiency advantage. I also
wonder if robots could use these to move. I think that would be okay, so long
as the robots could also stand still and dynamically balance without bouncing,
otherwise they'd be annoying.

------
timmaxw
Prosthetics that improve performance should be banned from the Olympics. If
prosthetics become good enough that completely-natural athletes can't win
medals, then athletes who haven't lost limbs (and aren't willing to have an
"accident") will effectively be excluded from the sport.

Of course, this doesn't apply to prosthetics that don't actually improve
performance or are completely irrelevant to the sport in question. It doesn't
matter if a soccer player has a prosthetic arm as long as it weighs as much as
his other one.

Prosthetics are fundamentally different from other sports equipment in that
any athlete can use a given piece of equipment, but most athletes can't use
prosthetics at all.

------
oh_sigh
Ridiculous. There should be absolutely no technology or mechanical aids
allowed in Olympic events like running. There is no way to determine how
Pistorius would run if he had legs, so any attempt at analyzing the impact of
the prosthetic is untestable.

Suppose a person who suffers from Short
stature(<http://www.diseasesdatabase.com/ddb18756.htm>) wanted to compete in
Olympic sprinting. Would it be acceptable for him to wear stilts that make him
5'10", since he suffers from a medical condition which prevents him from
entering the race otherwise?

------
johnbenwoo
Stand-up comedian Katt Williams' take on Pistorius being disqualified from the
2008 Olympics - <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qlNEmpxQxI>

"The last place you wanna be in a muthaf-ckin foot﻿ race is behind the guy
with no goddamn foots."

------
joshlegs
I love this story. I believe the government actually loosened its requirements
just a bit to allow him to compete. I think it was a terrific idea. [I'm kind
of rooting for him more than I'm rooting for my home country! -- shhh, don't
tell anyone]

------
toxiczone
What a sweet story leg less dude gets to compete w legged dudes, but his legs
were made for robocop....

Im not going to dispute his athleticism, but in a place like the Olympics
where it always comes down to hundredth of a second to beat some decade old
record... Where all these ppl trained since they were born... It just doesn't
seem right... If at least the prosthetics were engineered to behave like human
legs it wouldn't be as bad, but they are obviously designed for a specific
goal. I don't think he uses the same legs to go grocery shopping or catch a
movie...

Ps: this is an undeducated comment, I'm not planning to read dozens of
articles to study the scientific aspects of Joe's toes...

------
jonah
An older piece with some good background:

<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/blade.html>

------
JonoW
I'm really saddened by the cynical tone of the many critics of Oscar out
there. People only seem to focus on the advantages his prosthetics, whilst
ignoring what must be a multitude of disadvantages. He has less leg power to
power out of the blocks and he probably looses energy through the connection
of his legs to the prosthetics. And lets not forget mental disadvantages.

Oscar is probably a one in a generation case, it would be travesty to ban him
from competing.

