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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 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 agoExactly. 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 agoI 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 agoI 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.