Two legs up on the competition? The debate rages on

Much has been made about the inclusion of South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius in the 2012 Summer Olympics, the double-amputee nicknamed the “Blade Runner” who advanced to the semifinals of the men’s 400 meters in track. Depending on who you ask, Pistorius is either hailed as a champion for those with physical disabilities by making it to the big time, or villified by mainstream athletes for taking away an Olympic spot from an able-bodied contender. Science tried to quell the debate, but in my opinion only further muddied the waters.

It’s the long, J-shaped carbon-fiber lower legs dubbed the “Flex-Foot Cheetah” by its manufacturer that have us asking the unpopular question: Does Pistorius have an unfair advantage?

Pistorius was born without fibulas, one of the two long bones in the lower leg. Unable to walk as a baby, at age 11 months both legs were amputated below the knee. Yet he showed tremendous athleticism, playing rugby and running track. At age 18, he ran the sixth best 400-meter time of 47.32 seconds at the South African Championships.

Science jumped into the debate when Pistorius attempted to qualify for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. In 2007, German scientists reported that Pistorius used 25 percent less energy than natural runners because of the Flex-Foot Cheetah’s design. After the report was released, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) banned Pistorious from competing. A new study was obtained, conducted at Rice University. The team of scientists concluded Pistorius was “physiologically similar but mechanically dissimilar” to a normal runner, using oxygen at the same rate. Pistorius then was allowed to compete, but missed qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Olympics by 0.7 seconds.

While I applaud Pistorius’ success, I feel he held a slight advantage over his two-legged brethren. Here’s why. According to some members of the same team that overturned the decision banning Pistorius from competition, he swings his leg in .28 seconds, simply because, as I suspected, his Cheetahs are lighter than a human leg. The Cheetah weighs about 2.4 kilograms each, while a normal lower leg of an elite athlete weighs about 5.7 kilograms, more than double. Pistorius also can keep his foot on the ground longer than everyone else, thereby exerting more force to propel him forward, the dissenting scientists concluded. Because his Cheetah legs don’t tire, his lower leg stays springy throughout the entire race, whereas the human lower leg weakens and slows runners. According to Jim Martin, a researcher at the University of Utah, if Pistorius ran in a competitive 600-meter race, he could set the world record.

Those dissenting scientists from the Rice University study essentially said Pistorius is mechanically different in a way that confers a serious competitive advantage, according to a story in Scientific American.

This is a widely unpopular stance to take, for scientists and for a newspaper columnist. Unless an elite athlete loses his legs in a tragic accident and is equipped with a pair of Cheetahs, we may never know how much of an advantage, if any, technology offers. Perhaps Michael Johnson, 400-meter world record holder and winner of Olympic gold medals in 1996 and 2000, sums it up best.

“I think it is both,” he said at a recent event in London. “I know Oscar well, and he knows my position; my position is that because we don’t know for sure whether he gets an advantage from the prosthetics that he wears it is unfair to the able-bodied competitors.

“That is hard for a lot of people to take and to understand when you are talking about an athlete and an individual who has a disability.

“It is a great story, he is a great individual and he has been a great ambassador for athletes with a disability and for people, and how to overcome (that) and continue to strive."

I agree whole-heartedly.