The Pistorius Effect

A lot of discussion has been going around regarding Pistorius. Should he or shouldn’t he be allowed to compete for a spot in the Beijing Olympics? If he makes it, should he or shouldn’t he be allowed to compete. There’s concern over what this will do to sports in general; what kind of message is it sending out to others; and how it could throw off future comparisons within the sport, making some sports records incomparable.

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Posted by john  on  05/26  at  05:17 PM

Can the "Fair playing field" be objectively defined?. In the case of paraolympians there are biomechanical guidelines set. However, when there is a cross-over of a para-olympian to the olympian stage, the cheetah flex foot available to the para-olypian and not available to the olympian, in this sense it violates (may be quite a strong word) the level playing field. However, the "ultra-light" special running shoes avaiable to the althlete in the next lane is avaible to the olympian. In this sense the playing field is relatively constant as far as equipment goes.

Performances at elite level are quite stable, although there have been instances when they have been surpassed convincingly at major sporting events. There is doubt when a performance breaks this consistent quality present in sport. It brings in to question, is it the human competing or machine performing.

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