'Blade Runner' gets the chop: no Olympics for the double amputee

So what's your opinion Simon?
I'm torn. I've read the open letter from Ossur and they make a good case. These prosthetics, and similar ones, have been around for almost thirty years. Many amputees are able to do things they were never able to do before. But when they are in open competition, they are not dominating athletes with their full complement of limbs.
Pistorius is a world class athlete.
On the other hand, all kinds of questions are raised by allowing someone to use a device to improve his performance. This seems to me to be the real issue. The issue is not that the prosthetics make Pistorius able to run faster than someone with two legs. The issue is that Pistorius is a better runner with the prosthetics than without them.
The way he runs is not the same as the way a two-legged man runs, and the comparison may not be valid. It's not that it's easier. It's just different.
The IAAF is taking a position of ignorance in their explanation of their decision. I'm afraid that it may be the right decision for the wrong reason, though.

I agree: right decision, maybe for the wrong reason.

Two things come to mind: wheelchair athletes and elephants.

A racing wheelchair is a "device", just like the Cheetah prosthetics, and no one in their right mind, even operating at 100% political correctness, would expect to see wheelchair athletes competing against people on legs. I think Blade Runner's case is kind of the same. Like you say...running with blades is not the same as running with legs.

On the argument about whether the prosthetics actually make running "easier"... well, this is doomed to rhetoric and emotion; I recall the mighty Oscar's coach commenting along the lines of "If anyone thinks that blades make you run faster, then let them have their legs amputated and try it". That's when I started thinking about elephants. If you look at the heel/ankle/foot complex of fast animals like cheetahs and racehorses you can see how the "heel" bone is carried permanently off the ground in a "locked and loaded" position, which not only makes them extreme forefoot runners, but gives fantastic rigidity and recoil -- enabling them to power up to high speed.

Picture an elephant's leg: a straight column designed for weight-bearing and lumbering gallops, not sprinting. Humans follow the elephant design. Our heels are on the ground. To run at speed we have to compensate for that design; we lose power all the way.

It's interesting and maybe revealing that Ossur, the manufacturers of the blades that Pistorius uses, designed them in the style of cheetah's ankles/feet -- and even named the model "Cheetah". They didn't design them like "normal" human lower legs, because they were aware of the limitations. As you can see from films of Pistorius racing and as confirmed by the IAAF tests, the Cheetah blades are buggers at the start, but once they're up to speed the recoil enables athletes to cruise at high speed and use less oxygen/energy than when they have to work a normal ankle and foot.

I distrust Ossur's claim that athletes using their blades don't dominate able-bodied athletes in competition. First, while prosthetics have been around for 30 years, for most of that time they have been relatively primitive. The Cheetah-type technology is comparatively recent -- ten years or so -- and the Cheetahs themselves are the current state-of-the-art; so there simply hasn't been the time or the opportunity for this idea to be tested in open competition. As it is, Ossur claim that while "scores" of athletes have used the technology in the last ten years ago, "some of them" have got close to able-bodied world records. That does sound like an advantage to me. Also we'd have to compare athletes of similar standard and I've no idea how we would do that! Is Pistorius a world-class athlete, or is he a national-class athlete able to step up because of a mechanical advantage? Again, I've no idea.

Very difficult one.

There's a great analysis of the issue on the Science of Sport website of Dr Jonathan Dugas and Dr Ross Tucker here.