The most contentious issue in international sports these days is neither performance enhancing drugs nor match fixing. It involves the arguments over a young athlete’s participation in the Beijing Olympics of 2008.And the big question is whether a man with no legs should be allowed to compete with able bodied athletes, and probably beat them to the tape in the sprint events! The athlete involved is 20 year old South African Oscar Pistorius, "the fastest man on no legs", a double amputee who runs with the aid of carbon fibre legs named cheetahs. These artificial lower legs, while enabling him to compete, have also generated doubts that he has an unfair advantage over other runners!
Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius was born without fibulae in both legs due to a congenital condition and his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles when he was just 11 months old. Despite his physical condition however, the brave young boy had the heart of a sports man right from his school days. As a school boy he played rugby union, water polo and tennis. He also tried his hands at wrestling. After a serious rugby knee injury, he was introduced to athletics in January 2004 while undergoing rehabilitation, and never looked back.
IAAF has recently amended its competition rules to ban the use of "any technical device that incorporates springs, wheels or any other element that provides a user with an advantage over another athlete not using such a device". It claimed that the amendment was not specifically aimed at Pistorius, and his track performances are monitored using high-definition cameras to determine whether he actually has an advantage.
The most recent case with a parallel, coming to mind is that of Muthaiah Muralidharan. But Murali was not the first big star suspected of gaining an advantage from a deformity. Years ago a small boy born in a poor neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro was stricken by polio at the age of two. The doctors ruled that he may never walk. Not only did he walk, he also learned to out run his childhood play mates on those crippled legs and soon took to soccer as any kid in Brazil would do. The short boy nick named ‘the little bird’ went on to become one of the greatest stars of Brazilian soccer. But as a star he was also the subject of research as well as ridicule. His exploits on the soccer field were scrutinized and were the topic of research in an age when bio-mechanics was still in its infancy. His ‘banana’ kicks and the way he send the defenders on the wrong paths with his dribbles on the close encounters were all attributed to his bent legs. Some skeptics had even said that the greatest dribbler in soccer history might not have been aware of the path the ball would be going when he kicked it. To them Manuel Francisco dos Santos might never have been the legend that he was had it not been for his bent left leg!
And the great Indian leg spinner Bhagwat Chandrasekhar was similarly ridiculed about his polio afflicted right arm. Experts used to comment that Chandra knew nothing about what the ball would do once he had released it from his fingers. His astonishing strike rate in test cricket and his unplayable deliveries were aided by the deformity,according to them.
But unlike the great men mentioned above, Oscar Pistorius has a deformity which requires artificial limbs to enable him to compete. He affirms that his prosthetics do not give him an unfair advantage and lists the disadvantages that he faces, such as rain, which leaves traction hard to attain, wind, which blows the devices sideways, and the fact that he needs more energy to start running than others. Professor Robert Gailey of the University of Miami opines that the cheetahs, the artificial legs, return only 80% of the energy they absorb, about a third of what an organic leg returns. Pistorius has said that if the IAAF ever found evidence that he was gaining an advantage, he would stop running because he would not want to compete at a top level if he had an unfair advantage.
But do the bodies governing the international sports really ensure a level playing field for all athletes? Isn’t it a fact that the sports persons from the developed countries have access to technologies that give them a head start in any competitive sport? Have they closely verified how the Americans and the Chinese are able to sweep a major share of the medals up for grab in the Olympics? Is it purely sporting abilities alone that ensure their phenomenal success rate?
Many athletes who take part in the Paralympics were regular sportspersons whose disabilities were the result of some tragic accident in their adult life. But here we have a young man whose legs were amputated when he was just a toddler. If he had come this far from such a condition, he must be a real fighter with the heart of a true sportsman. Imagine the influence he can make on the lives of so many ‘differently-abled’ children across the world. That alone should be reason enough to allow him to run in the regular Olympics.
