3Qs: The fastest man on no legs

Who is Oscar Pistorius and why are people talking about him?

Oscar Pis­to­rius is a bilat­eral, transtibial — or below the knee — amputee. He was born without a fibula in both legs, and his par­ents made the deci­sion to ampu­tate. Kids who are born without a limb or have a pro­ce­dure done when they’re very young often have an easier time dealing with their dis­ability than if they have a limb ampu­tated years down the road. Pis­to­rius was always very moti­vated to suc­ceed and wanted to be a reg­ular kid, playing rugby and, of course, running.

The con­tro­versy over his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Olympics cen­ters on the carbon-​​fiber pros­thetic legs that he uses to run. When the carbon-​​fiber legs hit the ground, they com­press, which pro­duces an energy return. The people who are not in favor of Oscar com­peting with well-​​bodied folks say that this gives him an unfair advantage.

From your perspective, does he really have an unfair advantage?

Some studies that have exam­ined energy expen­di­ture in amputees have found that they have to make up for the force that would be pro­duced by, say, a leg, by expending energy using another part of their body. I would fall short of saying that Oscar, by being a bilat­eral amputee, has an unfair advan­tage. Car­dio­vas­cular per­for­mance studies indi­cate that he’s at or above the level of many people, which tells me that he’s very well trained, very moti­vated. The argu­ment that he has made in defense of his making the Olympics is that many uni­lat­eral and bilat­eral amputees who use carbon-​​fiber blades to run are not all breaking records. If the devices made the runner, then you’d have hun­dreds of Oscars com­peting at the highest level.

What does this fit into the bigger picture?

The Court of Arbi­tra­tion for Sport’s deci­sion to allow Oscar to com­pete in the Olympics essen­tially allows anyone with any dis­ability with any adap­tive equip­ment the oppor­tu­nity to claim that he or she should be allowed to com­pete. The ques­tion is, where do we draw the line and say, “Sorry you need to be in the Par­a­lympics or the Spe­cial Olympics”?

We live in a society that prides itself on fair­ness. We have laws that offer the same oppor­tu­ni­ties for male and female ath­letes and we expect that in our com­mu­ni­ties there is also fair­ness in the work­place for any person with mental or phys­ical challenges. The same should be true for sport. We should advo­cate for fairness. Allowing Oscar and other ath­letes that have the ability to qualify to com­pete with able-​​bodied ath­letes is fair.

Provided by Northeastern University