4 ms·

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 bre

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?"

brodney 14y ago
Didn't they ban the swim suits from the last olympics because of the advantages they conferred? I think they can evaluate the advances in technologies on a case by case basis and decide. His current setup offers no apparent one for his race, thus he should be allowed to compete.
- ahelwer 14y ago
  Exactly. Same goes with banned substances. Caffeine, for instance, is not banned despite giving a very minor advantage (or so the nutritionist told us when I used to speed skate competitively). A group of people educated on the subject decide where to draw the line.
- eggbrain 14y ago
  I think it would be much harder to determine whether a prosthetic was "fair" though. With the swimsuits, you could test two different swimsuits on the same swimmer and see if one offered a direct advantage. Not to mention, when people that have not broken world records before start breaking world records, all of them using the same suit, it becomes pretty obvious. With prosthetics, however, how do you compare how they run with prosthetics to how they might have ran if they had legs? If they don't break world records, but they place 2nd when they might have placed 5th with legs, how will we be able to know that?
  - brodney 14y ago
    I imagine they can use the same process from the wiki article where they studied the mechanical efficiency of Pistorius's running form and compared to other runners. They'd need to broaden the study to include turns and starts, and possibly more. That should show whether prosthetic runners have a net advantage.
sp332 14y ago
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.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- dasil003 14y ago
  Do you seriously not see the difference between sporting equipment and prosthetic limbs?
  - sp332 14y ago
    No? In golf, there was recently a debate as to whether a (permanently) injured player should be allowed to use a golf cart when all the other players had to walk. There are already restrictions on binoculars, wind gauges, and other measuring tools and techniques. In racing, tracks have been limited in their efficiency. Clothing is restricted. Professional and Olympic racers have labs design shoes for them. In the context of limiting "enhancements", I don't see anything about prosthetics that would make them more of a slippery slope than what we've already dealt with.
    - dasil003 14y ago
      How about voluntary child amputees because that's the only way left to compete in the Olympics? Doesn't that little slippery slope make traditional doping scandals seem like pat-a-cake?
      - sp332 14y ago
        It's not a slippery slope. The sport will put reasonable restrictions on runners' equipment that won't significantly incentivize replacing natural limbs. Edit: who knows, you may be right. After all, gymnasts injure themselves daily and risk their lives on a minute-by-minute basis during practices and competition. I doubt they would limit self-mutilation per se.
jdietrich 14y ago
Dozens of sports have been dealing with similar issues for many years, with no significant difficulties. Golf is perhaps the most obvious example - the Royal and Ancient rulebook includes restrictions on everything from clubhead size to coefficients of restitution to groove angles, in order to ensure that traditional courses remain relevant. They have taken a sport far more complex than running and established a very effective set of rules to freeze the development of equipment used by professionals. Twenty years ago there was the fear that longer and longer drives were going to render old courses obsolete, but that concern is all but gone - the rulebook sets hard limits on the basic mechanical properties of equipment. If disabled athletes start outrunning able-bodied athletes, the solution is very simple - the IAAF simply adds a paragraph to Rule 143 of the Competition Rules, which currently specifies the regulations for shoes and clothing. A coefficient of restitution rule, like that used in most ball games, would be easy to assess and put a hard limit on the efficiency of prostheses. If the International Paralympic Committee decides not to make such restrictions, that's their business and would have no effect on able-bodied sport.
- qq66 14y ago
  The thing about golf clubs is that everyone has a manufactured golf club -- it's not like some people have one they were born with and some have to go buy them. If the IAAF sets a limit on prosthetics, they cannot get it exactly "right" -- the limit will be either below or above the capabilities of the best sprinter's legs. If it's slightly below, that means that a disabled sprinter can never win, and shouldn't be competing in a race that's stacked against him. If the limit is higher, that means that disabled sprinters are at an advantage, and that able-bodied sprinters may even be able to gain an advantage by replacing their legs with prostheses.

brodney 14y ago

Didn't they ban the swim suits from the last olympics because of the advantages they conferred? I think they can evaluate the advances in technologies on a case by case basis and decide. His current setup offers no apparent one for his race, thus he should be allowed to compete.

ahelwer 14y ago
Exactly. Same goes with banned substances. Caffeine, for instance, is not banned despite giving a very minor advantage (or so the nutritionist told us when I used to speed skate competitively). A group of people educated on the subject decide where to draw the line.
eggbrain 14y ago
I think it would be much harder to determine whether a prosthetic was "fair" though. With the swimsuits, you could test two different swimsuits on the same swimmer and see if one offered a direct advantage. Not to mention, when people that have not broken world records before start breaking world records, all of them using the same suit, it becomes pretty obvious. With prosthetics, however, how do you compare how they run with prosthetics to how they might have ran if they had legs? If they don't break world records, but they place 2nd when they might have placed 5th with legs, how will we be able to know that?
- brodney 14y ago
  I imagine they can use the same process from the wiki article where they studied the mechanical efficiency of Pistorius's running form and compared to other runners. They'd need to broaden the study to include turns and starts, and possibly more. That should show whether prosthetic runners have a net advantage.

sp332 14y ago

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.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dasil003 14y ago
Do you seriously not see the difference between sporting equipment and prosthetic limbs?
- sp332 14y ago
  No? In golf, there was recently a debate as to whether a (permanently) injured player should be allowed to use a golf cart when all the other players had to walk. There are already restrictions on binoculars, wind gauges, and other measuring tools and techniques. In racing, tracks have been limited in their efficiency. Clothing is restricted. Professional and Olympic racers have labs design shoes for them. In the context of limiting "enhancements", I don't see anything about prosthetics that would make them more of a slippery slope than what we've already dealt with.
  - dasil003 14y ago
    How about voluntary child amputees because that's the only way left to compete in the Olympics? Doesn't that little slippery slope make traditional doping scandals seem like pat-a-cake?
    - sp332 14y ago
      It's not a slippery slope. The sport will put reasonable restrictions on runners' equipment that won't significantly incentivize replacing natural limbs. Edit: who knows, you may be right. After all, gymnasts injure themselves daily and risk their lives on a minute-by-minute basis during practices and competition. I doubt they would limit self-mutilation per se.

jdietrich 14y ago

Dozens of sports have been dealing with similar issues for many years, with no significant difficulties. Golf is perhaps the most obvious example - the Royal and Ancient rulebook includes restrictions on everything from clubhead size to coefficients of restitution to groove angles, in order to ensure that traditional courses remain relevant. They have taken a sport far more complex than running and established a very effective set of rules to freeze the development of equipment used by professionals. Twenty years ago there was the fear that longer and longer drives were going to render old courses obsolete, but that concern is all but gone - the rulebook sets hard limits on the basic mechanical properties of equipment. If disabled athletes start outrunning able-bodied athletes, the solution is very simple - the IAAF simply adds a paragraph to Rule 143 of the Competition Rules, which currently specifies the regulations for shoes and clothing. A coefficient of restitution rule, like that used in most ball games, would be easy to assess and put a hard limit on the efficiency of prostheses. If the International Paralympic Committee decides not to make such restrictions, that's their business and would have no effect on able-bodied sport.

qq66 14y ago
The thing about golf clubs is that everyone has a manufactured golf club -- it's not like some people have one they were born with and some have to go buy them. If the IAAF sets a limit on prosthetics, they cannot get it exactly "right" -- the limit will be either below or above the capabilities of the best sprinter's legs. If it's slightly below, that means that a disabled sprinter can never win, and shouldn't be competing in a race that's stacked against him. If the limit is higher, that means that disabled sprinters are at an advantage, and that able-bodied sprinters may even be able to gain an advantage by replacing their legs with prostheses.