South African Oscar Pistorius has qualified to compete in the 4x400m relay at the London Olympics. Modern technology is amazing. There is no way in looking at him walking running that would tell you that he had prosthetics for both legs below the knee, unless you look closely.
Here is Pistorius running at the 2001 World Championships.
Update: This article explains why Pistorius’s prosthetic limbs were ruled to be eligible and how each new development will have to be decided on a case by case basis.
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Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
July 5, 2012 at 3:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
How’s that fair? That man is clearly part robot! :O
Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)
July 5, 2012 at 3:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I shall compete in the power-lifting event using only my (medically-necessary) hydraulic assisted exoskeleton. I promise not to use the built-in tools or weapons, and I won’t even use the jetpack!
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
July 5, 2012 at 3:35 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is a graphical representation of my medically necessary prosthetic.
Zinc Avenger
July 5, 2012 at 4:11 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I hope you have a prescription for LRMs.
kagerato
July 6, 2012 at 4:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wow, that bears an uncanny resemblance to Metal Gear (particularly the one in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake [MSX2, 1990]). If I read the year on the image correctly, it’s 1991, so looks like somebody got copied.
OverlappingMagisteria
July 5, 2012 at 4:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I wonder what will happen as the prosthetics technology improves. Will it ever get to a point where a prosthetic would be superior to regular limb? At that point will there be a separate “prosthetic class” in the Olympics?
Mano Singham
July 5, 2012 at 5:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Apparently they have ways of measuring if a prosthesis requires less bodily effort than a regular limb to achieve the same result. If that is the case, those will likely be ruled ineligible for sporting competitions.
While I appreciate the difficulty that this poses for sporting events, I am more fascinated by the advances that are being made in enabling disabled people to function at such an extraordinarily high level.
Stevarious
July 5, 2012 at 6:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The article actually mentions such things. The expectation is that, eventually, there will be a ‘standard’, Olympics approved prosthetic. Meanwhile, over at the Paralympics, anything goes.
Hairy Chris, blah blah blah etc
July 6, 2012 at 6:55 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Well, kind of, but there’s a hell of a lot of categorisation that goes on to make things fair! And people have been known to cheat too…