Should Pistorious run in the Olympics?

two legger wrote:

If you let in people with blades, why not let in people with motorized wheelchairs?

I will admit to having a problem with it. The problem is where do you draw the line? If someone has a metal screw and rods in their leg, does that prohibit them? Should those who shoot guns at targets be allowed to wear eyeglasses or contacts or have laser surgery?

I'm not sure we can accurately measure how much those blades help him. I know there are ways to measure, but with track and field you are talking hundredths of a second oftentimes. I'm not sure we can be THAT certain that all is fair there.

I think he should compete in the Olympics OR the Paralympics, but not both. Let him choose between being a big fish in a small pond, or a tiny minnow in the Olympics.

Let him run.

This will go away quicker if you let him run then if you don't.

He ran in last year's World Championships and I didn't see any negative fall-out from that.

two legger wrote:

If you let in people with blades, why not let in people with motorized wheelchairs?

This is the same logic by which people concluded that allowing gay marriage would eventually lead to people marrying various animals, family members, and inanimate objects.

two legger wrote:

If you let in people with blades, why not let in people with motorized wheelchairs?

He's running in the Olympics...move on.

No, he should not be allowed to run given the blades clearly give him an advantage.

Yes

Should not be allowed to run. If he was equipped with fins, would he be allowed to swim in the Olympics?

Lets say he medalled (he won't) - imagine the uproar. His life would be hell. No-one including Oscar himself would know if it was cheating or not. For this reason he should never have even gone down this path. Stick to the Paralympics.

Nobody wants to be the bad guy and say he shouldn't run, but that's only because he barely has the "A" and won't medal. But if he DID medal, the feel-good story about inclusion becomes a story about how the first guy off the medal stand got robbed.

It's a lot like poor Castor Semenya a few years ago--nobody would ever willingly trade with them to gain their "advantage," and it's not their fault. But at the end of the day, the physiology is different.

Let's face it: emotions are great for feeling with and lousy for thinking with.

Another thing I haven't heard anyone discuss is the advantage he has in terms of injury-propensity. He has no, ankles, achilles, knees, etc. He is far less likely to get injured than his competitors, and is therefore not on the same training plane as everyone else.

He or others could maybe point out disadvantages to his competitive situation, and that's fine. The point is his body is not the same as everyone else's. It's not even close, and therefore he shouldn't be competing with everyone else at the Olympics. It sucks to say that, but that's my opinion.

Love to see party boy in the Olympics.

toro wrote:

Let him run.

This will go away quicker if you let him run then if you don't.

He ran in last year's World Championships and I didn't see any negative fall-out from that.

C'mon dude, you didn't see any negative fall out because he did not place. Just wait until he places and there will be plenty of outrage. There was another person from South Africa that raced in the women's 800. It was tolerated until that person won. At that point there was plenty of negative fall-out.

Fortunately Oscar P. is only running the relay. Unfortunately his start is so bad that he probably won't lead off. With that in mind, he will be mixing it up with other runners, cutting in, passing, etc. I fear that those fast moving blades might injure another runner.

Yes, but only without the blades. If he needs the blades to compete effectively then he should compete in the paralympics.

As long as he's clean he should run. If he's clean, and the blades do give him an advantage, it just levels the playing field against all the dopers he is competing against.

well the thing is, those extension replacements don't even look or shape like calves/ankles/foot/toes.

What if a guy with no feet don a pair of flippers and swim, or a guy without elbows and forearms put on some bionic metal parts and do weightlifting?