South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius ran a 45.44 in the first heat of yesterday’s 400M sprints. He finished second in his heat, advancing him to today’s semifinals. His was the 9th fastest time of his day and was far from a world record, Olympic record, or even his personal best. Why is this noteworthy? Well, as the above image shows, Pistorius is a double-amputee who competes using a pair of carbon fiber prosthetic “blades”.
Pistorius’s story is no doubt remarkable. He was born with a condition known as fibular hemimelia; this means he was born without the fibula (shin bone) in either leg. At 11 months old, both his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and his ankles. Despite this, he grew up playing rugby, water polo, and tennis. After sustaining a serious knee injury, he began running at the age of 18, competing that t same year in the 2004 Paralympics.
It would border on criminal to doubt Pistorius’s work ethic, determination, perseverance, or any of the other platitudes that we typically reserve for either able-bodied athletes or disabled non-athletes. That he eschews both these labels, it seems as if such words may not do his efforts justice.
With all that said, there remains much debate about his participation against able-bodied athletes; so much, in fact, that I could have linked every individual word in this sentence with a different perspective coming from someone with a completely different expertise. I have opted not to because… I don’t know how anyone can say with any certainty whether it is more right or fair to allow Pistorius to compete or to bar him from doing so. There is no control group and I’m pretty sure our resident doctor would “tsk tsk” any study intended to determine whether an individual runs faster with his legs or with the blades.
As squirmy as it might make some of us feel, I don’t think that there is anything wrong with people attempting to answer the question, as the question needs to be answered. Pistorius was initially barred from such competitions but won an appeal in 2008 and has since been allowed to participate. So the question has been asked and answered several times, albeit without any consistency.
My thoughts? Honestly, I really have no idea. I’m on the record as thinking that it would behoove professional sports to allow the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), presuming their use is voluntary and informed. My argument is largely practical: there are already a myriad of ways that athletes unnaturally improve their performance and it seems arbitrary that we prohibit certain ways that are often demonstrably safer and more effective; many athletes, especially those with access to so-called “designer drugs” that are often undetectable, are going to use PEDs regardless of the rules, meaning their prohibition likely means a less level playing field than their allowance. But are carbon-fiber prosthetics the same as a drug? Assuredly not. But if we ban them, must we also ban laser eye surgery (which at least some athletes have done despite having vision that doesn’t necessitate, meaning it is being use solely to improve and not to make up for a limitation)? Should we ban Tommy John surgery (a procedure where a ligament from another point of the body is grafted to replace a ruptured ligament in the elbow), especially in the face of reports that players come back throwing harder than before the surgery and some arguing that pitchers ought to opt for the surgery without an injury? Swimming has already banned certain suits because they were considered to give too much of an advantage to the wearer, but that doesn’t stop the manufacturers of swimming, track, and I’m sure other uniforms from continuing to pursue such technologies.
The real question is: where do we draw the line? Again, I really have no idea at this point. I am an avid sports fan but am admittedly ignorant on exactly how all these or other technological advances impact the body and if some ought to be considered more acceptable than others. Still, something seems off about Pistorius competing. What I fear is that this says more about me and some un- or subconscious reaction to or perception of the disabled than it does about any sense of “fairness” in sport. Which I tend to think is the case whenever we start drawing lines in the sand: they are often more reflective of our own biases than an objective assessment of the question being answered. As much as I’d like to insist that my very soft, just-to-this-side-of-the-line objection to Pistorius’ inclusion on the lack of lactic acid buildup in his non-existent calves or on the fact that none of the other advantages sought by other athletes involve me having to look up whether “carbon fiber” ought to be hyphenated or not (Wikipedia says “yes”; Microsoft says “no”), I can’t help but think there is more to it than that. At the same time, perhaps the “softness” of my objection is in part a result of awe, sympathy or, dare I say it, pity. Perhaps I would be more vociferous and comfortable in my objections if I didn’t feel the same way about many of the objections that I do about the tasteless Helen Keller jokes I’ve heard over the years: you’re going to mock one of the most accomplished persons with disability ever? No, please tell us what you REALLY think about the disabled.
So, yea, I don’t know. And as sports so often does, it casts the mirror back on me. Pistorius is going to compete today and possibly tomorrow. He likely doesn’t give two sharts what I think. I should probably figure out what it is that I do think, though, as uncomfortable at that might make me. Sport is about pushing our limits. Whether it is a man who lost the ability to look down and see his feet before his 1st birthday seeing how he measures up against the best athletes on Earth or a man sitting on his couch pondering “what this all means”, limits will be pushed every time Pistorius takes to the track. And THAT is why I love sports as much as I do.
I’ve said enough. What do you all think???
*****UPDATED*****
Pistorius finished last in his semifinal heat today and was eliminated from competition. In what was an apparently unprecedented move, the winner of that heat traded racing bibs with Pistorius, a sign of respect and acceptance.
I was watching a documentary on trebuchets at some point (yeah, I’m that guy) and they spent a good five minutes on the sling. They showed what a throw looked like without it, and then they showed how the sling acted as a secondary fulcrum that, holy cow, seriously multiplied the force of the throw (and thus distance/damage).
There is a small core of developers at work who watched the same documentary and we started building trebuchets out of tongue depressors, rubber bands, paper clips, and so on… and, yep, we found that the addition of a two-inch length of string, we were able to throw our munitions about twice as far.
WHICH BRINGS US TO YOUR TOPIC!
The human body is a wonderful and elegant thing… but that’s not to say that there aren’t some serious engineering changes you’d want to make if you were trying to make the perfect shotput thrower, or the perfect swimmer, or the perfect sprinter. The problem is that, for so much of life, the human body’s “jack of all trades” thing that it has going on makes it ideal for grocery shopping, a pick-up game of basketball at the Y, sweeping the floor with a broom and dustpan, throwing darts at the pub, or shaking your butt on the dance floor and doing any/all of these things within minutes of doing the previous. The whole cyborg thing can make you a perfect shotput thrower at the price of being particularly good at soup selection or taking the trash out to the curb.
It might give you a sling where everyone else doesn’t have one… and pointing out that, hey, he sucks at vacuuming stairs is small consolation to the shotput throwers who are, more or less, using the same equipment as those Greek dudes from waybackwhen and hoping to achieve a dinky piece of immortality thereby.
Now, as you’ve pointed out, these particular legs are not quite yet engineering marvels to the point where they allow the athlete to outperform humans with factory legs… but we’re just getting started.
I like trebuchets does that make me “that girl”?
“Now, as you’ve pointed out, these particular legs are not quite yet engineering marvels to the point where they allow the athlete to outperform humans with factory legs…”
This is actually a more complicated statement than you might realize. First, it these legs combined with Pistorius’ natural abilities yesterday made him faster at running 400M than all but 8 other men alive right now. So, with the legs, he is better than 99.9999999etc% of humans with factory legs.
But I don’t think that is really the issue. The issue, as I understand it, is whether or not they make him faster than he, himself, would be with his own factory legs. And that is a question we seem incapable of answering, since we don’t have a control Pistorius with legs to compare him against. But if Usain Bolt would be faster by amputating his legs and running with the blades than he would be by simply running with his regular legs, than the blades would seem to offer and advantage.
BUT EVEN IF THAT IS THE CASE, does that mean they should be banned from competition? Surely all the runners competing run faster with shoes than without. So what is the difference between shoes and blades? Surely there is a difference, but is it such than we should allow the former and not the latter?
I look at Pistorius and I see a guy with Olympian-level intangibles (indeed, he might have better intangibles than most of the folks there). It’s not difficult for me, at all, to see him exactly in the same place getting similar numbers with standard equipment. As such, I don’t think he should be banned.
That said, if he wins a medal, he probably *SHOULD* have an asterisk.
Spending this much time focusing on a guy from South Africa when you could be talking about Michael Phelps is soft anti-Americanism .
No politics.
FWIW, I believe Mike was making a joke in reference to a post Tod made in Off the Cuff. If he was still in err, I’ll chastise him more publicly.
Man, I can’t even make fun of myself!
You’re being oppressed, Jaybird!
D’OH!
In an earlier draft, I discussed how the “controversy” might erupt should Pistorius medal. It appears unlikely that he will, since his personal best is off the pace that the winners tend to be at, but one never knows. To me, I don’t think an asterisk would be appropriate, for two reasons: 1) I think either he should compete freely as all other competitors or not at all; an asterisk puts him in a weird middle ground where, yes he is competing but no we won’t recognize his success as the same and 2) any conversation about his winning is going to include reference to his disability and the blades, so the asterisk would be superfluous.
But, yea, I’m curious to see what the fall out will be should he make it to the podium.
” The issue, as I understand it, is whether or not they make him faster than he, himself, would be with his own factory legs”
Exactly the question, and indeed unanswerable. From what I’ve read, there’s real uncertainty about whether the springiness of the carbon fiber is more of an advantage than the not quite normal running motion they require is a disadvantage. Like you, I truly have no idea whether he ” should” be in the Olympics or not. And in addition to all the relevant points you mentioned, there is the unanswerable question of what are the Olympicssupposed to be about? Presumably we don’t want a true cyborg Olympics, but at the same time they are very much about the triumph of the human spirit, individual determination to push past the obstacles and through the pain to achieve remarkable performances. Lines must be drawn, but because clear and definitive standards are not available, we will have ever changing standards and endless debate. Some people like that. I don’t (I’m not even reconciled to the shot clock and three point line in college basketball), but I recognize there’s no point in objecting to the process.
“And in addition to all the relevant points you mentioned, there is the unanswerable question of what are the Olympicssupposed to be about?”
What is any sport supposed to be about? We often try to answer questions that beg this one, with seemingly few attempts or opportunities to answer this most foundational one. I won’t pretend to have an answer myself.
Well, the key difference is that shoes can be put on and taken off, whereas wearing these blades requires amputating your foot and part of your leg. For obvious reasons, we really want to avoid a negative-sum game in which runners have to undergo elective amputations to have a chance at winning. On the other hand, maybe there aren’t any top runners who want to win that badly, and it doesn’t matter anyway.
I do believe the blades can be taken off but I see your point.
What then of laser eye surgery?
Where Tiger Woods got to a good of vision as Ted Williams had naturally.
I view lasik in the same light as Tommy John surgery though, and not really like, for example, steroids.
Since I have little expertise on the primary issue at hand, I shall attempt to answer the question that does fall within my area of expertise.
“me having to look up whether “carbon fiber” ought to be hyphenated or not (Wikipedia says “yes”; Microsoft says “no”)”
Having an undergraduate degree that included not insignificant studies into fiber-reinforced composites, I strongly fall onto the “no” side. “Carbon fiber” with no hyphen appears to be the far and away the favored form in technical literature (as an example, the DoD Composite Materials handbook, http://www.lib.ucdavis.edu/dept/pse/resources/fulltext/HDBK17-2F.pdf). Indeed, my impression was that the no-hyphen form was so universal that I was surprised to hear that Wikipedia disagreed.
Therefore, I chose to investigate this strange situation myself, by typing “carbon fiber” into the search bar of Wikipedia. I found myself forwarded to a page titled “Carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer”. That article describes not the fibers of carbon themselves, but the composite materials formed by embedding carbon fibers in a matrix of polymer. Such a forwarding is not inappropriate, however, because such composites are often referred to shorthand as carbon fiber, and indeed the “carbon fiber” prosthetics used Mr. Pistorious appear to be made from such a material (though I’ve been unable to find a source describing them specifically).
That title, I note, contains not one but two hyphens. However, I note that the first line of the article contains the phrase “often simply [referred to as] carbon fiber”, with no hyphens, in accordance with my previous experience. I conclude, then, that the hyphens are as a result of the entire description “carbon-fiber-reinforced” being a compound, not merely the carbon fiber, and hyphens are used just as they are used in the more general phrase “fiber-reinforced composite” (which is the precise title of a wikipedia article describing such materials).
In conclusion, I say with confidence that “carbon fiber” with no hyphen is the correct form. Nevertheless, I see how the esteemed author, who despite his undeniable expertise in other areas has limited education in materials science, became confused.
Thanks, Fnord! Looking more closely, I see that Wikipedia uses both “carbon fibre” and “carbon-fibre” within the same article. Why they spell it “fibre”… I have no idea. More importantly, it was not Wikipedia that led me astray, but an ESPN.com article, that does indeed use “carbon-fiber” consistently through. I had the Wiki page open when writing the piece and mistook this for the source of the hyphenated reference.
The “fibre” spelling is relatively common in technical literature. And not just for carbon fiber/fibre, but for many different varieties of fiber/fibre used in composite materials. Far more common, certainly, than the hyphenated form. Of course, such a spelling is standard in British English, so some use is to be expected. Nevertheless, my impression is that it appears more often than other British constructions. The reason for this, however, is unknown to me.
On Wikipedia itself, though the “fiber” spelling is used for both the “Carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer” article about the specific class of materials, and the “Fiber-reinforced composite” article about he most general class of materials, it uses “fibre” for the intermediate article “Fibre-reinforced plastics”.
(Wikipedia says “yes”; Microsoft says “no”)
But what does the Daily Show’s Special Correspondent for Punctuation say?
“Carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer”.
That looks like the normal hyphenation of phrases used as adjectives, e.g. “small-town mayor”. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_compound#Hyphenated_compound_modifiers .
It depends on whether it’s being used as a noun or adjective. “His legs are made out of carbon fiber” vs. “He has carbon-fiber legs.”
I don’t think that’s actually true. My experience of the style used in technical literature is that while carbon-fiber-reinforced composite has the hyphens something like carbon fiber composite does not. See, eg, the title of the fourth chapter of the Composite Materials Handbook I linked above, which is Carbon Fiber Composites, with no hyphens (first visible in the table of contents on page iv).
But yeah, it’s about incentives. It’s one thing throwing a badminton match to gain an overall competitive advantage, quite another to chop off your tibias.
Here’s another take on it.
Now this is a sports post I understand.
Wahoo!
…so what do you think…?
I know dozens of people who experience physical and/or intellectual disabilities who struggle in life. If this gentleman can overcome the obstacles that he faces in conjuction with his disability and come out on top in addition to kicking butt in any sport, he deserves the medal. If an asterisk is placed next to his name it better indicate the man is a freaking force and deserves twice the respect.