News: Double-leg amputee too fast to compete in Olympics

[dracodraconis]

Double-leg amputee Oscar Pistorius has been officially told by the IAAF that non-disabled athletes are at too much of a disadvantage for him to compete against them in the Olympics. One the hand, it's too bad he can't compete, given his running times are well within the required qualifying times, but on the other hand, this is the first time a person with prosthetics is considered to have an advantage over the best athletes in the world. Now I'd like to see if he really could beat them. Maybe a fund-raising race against some of the Olympic winners would be a good idea. I'd certainly watch.

Comments

[samhaine.livejournal.com]

I'd been wondering about that for a long time. It sucks that the guy is handicapped, and it's awesome that the tech lets him run again, but he's functionally cyborged out to the limits of our current tech. And, while I welcome the appearance of the cyberjock games, it's probably unfair for a street samurai to compete against runners that still have all their Essence.

[dracodraconis.livejournal.com]

The ruling came down to deciding that his prosthetics violated IAAF rules that the athlete cannot be enhanced. It is neat, though, that prosthetics are now good enough to be considered "enhancements".