I don’t believe that athletes using prosthetics should be allowed to compete with natural limbed athletes. The state of all of sport seems to be at a crucial point in history that cannot afford any more ambiguities in terms of physical enhancement or unethical development and as heartless as it may sound, allowing mechanical devices of any kind onto the playing field, track, or court just pushes athletics farther into the gray area of authentic performance.
This argument came to a head this summer when Oscar Pitorius of South Africa declared that he wanted to be the first amputee to compete in the Olympic Games. He has already won the 400, 200, and 100 in the 2004 ParaOlympic Games and set world records in each respective event, but Pitorius wanted to prove that there was “nothing I can’t do that able bodied athletes can do” (New York Times, An Amputee Sprinter, May 15, 2007). But the question is, is there MORE he can do without the hindrance of human legs?
I think, maybe. And just that little maybe is enough to not allow it. After a lot of research, the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federation) found that Pitorius’s fake legs provided less air resistance than normal ones and that “the way he distributed energy was virtually the opposite of able bodied runners” (ESPN.com, Amputee Legs Could Provide Less Air Resistance, July 16, 2007). He was able to consistently run the second half of his race faster than the first—basically a rare if not impossible feat for a typical 400 meter runner.
He was allowed in one elite meet in Rome this summer which came to an anticlimactic finish when he was disqualified for stepping outside of the line, ironically probably because it had just rained and the metal feet of his prosthetics could not grip the track as well. So here is the double edged sword. On the one hand, the prosthetics seem to aid Pitorius. On the other, he is at an extreme disadvantage. Either way, it doesn’t seem right.
Although Pitorius’s story is a little out of the spot light right now, it is sure to pop up again as the 2008 Games draw near. But the issue with performance enhancement is at the forefront of all sports all the time. Just this week, as RyanW blogged earlier, cyclist Floyd Landis was found guilty of testosterone doping after winning the Tour de France; Barry Bonds contract is not being renewed after huge controversy over his drug use; runners all over the world are using artificial tents to simulate altitude for oxygen production; etc. The list goes on.
I know that all those issues above are choices made BY the athletes and that prosthetic limbs are not things people choose to have. It seems heartless to compare a man who has worked long hours to achieve greatness even after being born without legs to a sleeze who injects steroids into his arm, but if the outcome of both situations is artificial enhancement, then the treatment should be the same.
If people with fake limbs were allowed to compete in events that depended on that body part, science would in time be able to catch up enough to make those parts more efficient and less awkward than they are today. Pitorius’s advantage is still unclear, but if given permission to compete in the 2008 Games, it would only be a matter of the right (or wrong) people extending their energy towards this new area before the advanced, uncompromising artificial components crept their way into the already hazy competitive field.
Modern technology is at one time the greatest and the most detrimental development for sport. I don’t think athletes using prosthetics should be able to compete with “able bodied” athletes simply because it would not be a level playing field for all involved. At times it would be a disadvantage, at others and in the future, perhaps just another form of performance enhancement.
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