

Paralympic athletes who harm themselves to perform better - darrhiggs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19325756

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freehunter
The entire paralympic games baffles me. Injuries which cause handicaps are
incredibly diverse. The winner will be the one with the injuries that cause
the least amount of disruption to their physical capabilities. I applaud the
athletes who refuse to let tragic circumstances get in the way of the
enjoyment of their sport, but having a level playing field in the Olympics is
about who has the most performance out of a set of extraordinary but roughly
equal human beings. It seems hard to get that same level of equality in the
paralympics.

Does anyone have any insight into how they match competitors to ensure a level
playing field? Would someone with a normal heart rate increase ever be matched
against someone with a spinal injury preventing normal heart rate increase,
which would basically require this kind of pain training?

~~~
FigBug
I raced paracycling for a few years. I was 2nd a nationals once, but never
good enough to make it to the paralympics.

There are lots of categories. It's changed slightly now, but when I raced
there was C1 - C5 for cyclists, T1 - T3 for tricyclists and H1 - H4 for hand
cyclists. So that's 12 categories for each men and women in cycling. I needed
to be evaluated twice by physiotherapists for strength, range of motion, etc.
Then I was placed in a category. Obviously you want to be put in the lowest
possible category for your disability. Lots of shady stuff goes on, faking
additional disability etc. You can lodge a protest against other athletes if
you think they are in the wrong category.

As I understand it now, they've reduced the number of medals given out, so
instead of each category having a medal, each category has a standard speed,
and the athlete that beats the standard by the greatest percentage wins. Other
sports still have medals for each category but cycling went away from it due
to not enough athletes per category. Swimming probably has the most athletes.

Here is the classification guide:
[http://www.handbiken.at/Regeln/Paracycling%20Classification....](http://www.handbiken.at/Regeln/Paracycling%20Classification.pdf)

For example, my category C5 is:

Neurological Fair to normal \- Major and minor neurological signs \- Minimally
affected diplegic with spasticity grade 1 or 1+ \- Truly ambulant hemiplegic
with spasticity grade 1 or 1+ \- Monoplegic and minimal athetoids \- Possible
loss of function by uncoordinated hands or one leg

Co-ordination Fair to normal \- Very slight signs of inco-ordination on the
bike (not normal function)

Abilities \- Fair to normal (0-2 points): mostly functional but not normal,
major and minor signs

Amputation, Impairment as described in 2b 2 “fair to normal” \- Single
amputation AE, with or without prosthesis, no functional grip (54 points) \-
Single amputation BE with the use of a prosthesis

Minimal disability: Amputation of all fingers and thumb (through MCP) or
amputation of more than half foot (forefoot). In the case of a single AE-, BE-
amputation or a single upper limb dysmelia, the minimal impairment is met if
all fingers and the thumb of one hand is missing through the MCP joint or
other impairments who are equivalents, without a functional grip. As a proof
of the loss of functional grip, the affected athlete will not be able to
operat

~~~
freehunter
Very interesting, thanks!

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jilebedev
> When able-bodied competitors engage in hard physical activities like running
> or swimming, blood pressure and heart rate increase automatically. Athletes
> with spinal injuries do not get that response.

Can anyone explain why a spinal cord injury would render a human unable to
raise their blood pressure through strenuous physical exercise? It doesn't
seem to make sense.

~~~
jaggederest
To summarize what I understand from the Wikipedia article, the neurons
involved are located between the T1 and L1 levels of the spinal cord. If you
have a spinal injury above L1, some of those neurons are disconnected from the
brain, and thus cannot activate normal responses (e.g. fight or flight).

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tucaz
I'm not entirely sure as why, but as I read the article, specially the guy
smashing his toe to increase the blood pressure I felt really bad.

They are in a really bad shape, but still will do things like that to win. Not
sure what to think of it.

~~~
nivla
I din't feel bad for them, I moreover lost respect for them. Damaging your
body more to prove that disability can't stand in your way to success is
pathetic and hypocritical. Sadly this just makes me less interested in
watching the Paralympics.

~~~
CamperBob2
(Shrug) I gained respect for them. Many if not most of those who compete in a
so-called "normal" athletic event either damaged their body to get there, or
will damage it intentionally during the competition. (Have you ever watched an
American football game, for Pete's sake? Do you have any idea what those guys
are doing to themselves? Smashing a toe is the least of their concerns.)

What I read was an article about people hacking their bodies to get to levels
of performance they wouldn't otherwise be capable of. In this case the
athletes' bodies are already damaged, typically in ways that would stop the
rest of us in our tracks.

My opinion is contrarian and I don't expect to see much agreement here or
elsewhere. But then, I've also argued that there should be an "unlimited"
category in sports like cycling where the athlete with the best drug lab wins.

~~~
nivla
>Have you ever watched an American football game, for Pete's sake? Do you have
any idea what those guys are doing to themselves?

You mean the game where you get to wear one million paddings that makes even
skinniest person look buffed up? I would have gone with Rugby as a better
example of being brutal. However, you argument still doesn't hold because in
these cases you are not self inflicting a damage on yourself. Sure you are
more likely to get hurt during the game and have a higher chance of causing a
permanent damage but there is a big difference between doing that to yourself
just to win a game and being a part of an accident. Whatever happened to the
term Sportsmanship <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportsmanship> ?

>What I read was an article about people hacking their bodies to get to levels
of performance they wouldn't otherwise be capable of.

That argument would have a better merit if they were to compete against the
"normal" athletes. However they are not, they are competing against people who
has similar disabilities and limitations like them. So its will be a fair game
if they don't resort to such performance enhancing methods.

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solox3
This is sad. This is not how you win, and your victory is not worth the glory.

~~~
sp332
Why not? For example: sprinters injure themselves during training on a regular
basis. Strength increases much faster when you train a bit past the point of
injury and then heal, repeatedly.

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EliRivers
Hack themselves to perform better, surely?

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mhb
How can a quadriplegic be a climber?

~~~
colanderman
Look at the picture in the article.

~~~
mhb
Thanks for the tip. I did that before asking and I saw a guy kind of standing
with a lot of equipment behind him.

Prior to the useful other reply, I thought that being a quadriplegic implied
you couldn't move your arms or legs.

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chimeracoder
Part of what makes watching people with disabilities compete in events so
heartwarming to watch is being able to share in their victory.

But what kind of victory is it?

I used to wrestle competitively, and I still believe that it's the most
underrated sport, partly for the following reason:

Wrestling is undeniably a team sport - matches are scored for the entire team,
and the support and camaraderie between teammates is not an empty gesture; I
can't imagine a successful team that lacks this. But on the other hand, when
you and your opponent are on the mat for your six minutes, you're the only one
fighting for your team - all the pressure is on you and you alone.

Most importantly, this makes victories personal. You can win your match even
if the team loses, and vice versa. You can lose your match and still help the
team win (by keeping the margin of victory low, which impacts the score). You
can have a personal triumph, and your teammates will share in that, regardless
of the outcome of the team's score.

I know less about the Paralympics than the Special Olympics (and yes, I know
they're different), but to me, both always stood out to me as wonderful
reminders of the true importance of sportsmanship - not athleticism, but
_sportsmanship_. Part of that is about treating your opponent with respect,
which is how we usually hear the word, but part of it is about treating
_yourself_ with respect. A dishonorable victory may help your team/country,
but for you personally, it's a defeat. On the other hand, being able to
overcome a personal struggle, even if you don't "win" the match, qualifies as
a victory in my book, and as a spectator, I like being able to celebrate that
with the athlete.

Knowing that somebody is artificially harming their body in order to boost
some artificial metric (like their race time), or even to gain an edge over
their opponent - that's not a good way to treat yourself as an athlete. But
that robs me of my vicarious joy as well. And that's a horrible way to treat
your teammate.

~~~
mindcrime
> Wrestling is undeniably a team sport - matches are scored > for the entire
> team

 _Hey Otto, I've got news for you. Wrestling is not a team sport. When you're
out there against a guy who is faster and stronger than you, there isn't a
whole hell of a lot your team can do for you."_ [1]

> I know less about the Paralympics than the Special Olympics (and yes, I know
> they're different), but to me, both always stood out to me as wonderful
> reminders of the true importance of sportsmanship - not athleticism, but
> sportsmanship.

No doubt, good sportsmanship is an admirable quality. But is it really
reasonable to expect the Paralympics or Special Olympics to be any more of an
exemplar of that, than any other athletic competition? At the end of the day,
the participants are still people... with ego, vanity, jealousy and whole
gamut of human emotions.

[1]: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090270/>

