Follow-up on Oscar's bid for Olympic quest

In an earlier blog entry, (Score: Bullies 1, Amputee Sprinter 0) I wrote about double amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius' quest to compete in the Olympics with his able-bodied peers. Officials denied his entry, arguing that his high-tech prostheses gave him an "unfair advantage" over those who had human legs. Today, Pistorius won his appeal with the Court of Arbitration of Sport:

New York Times
Panel Backs Amputee Sprinter's Olympic Quest
By Joshua Robinson

Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee sprinter who was barred from able-bodied competition in January, will be allowed to pursue his dream of qualifying for the Olympic Games after an unexpected decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The Court, an international panel which has final say over legal matters in sport, overturned the International Association of Athletics Federations’ ban, ruling in effect that Pistorius’ carbon fiber prosthetic blades do not give him an unfair advantage.

The court came to a decision after hearing expert testimony from Pistorius’s camp and the I.A.A.F., track and field’s governing body, on April 29 and 30 in Lausanne, Switzerland. It published its opinion in a statement at 9 a.m., Eastern time.The I.A.A.F. had declared Pistorius ineligible for able-bodied competition in January despite originally clearing him to compete last spring, pending further investigation. Pistorius will be allowed to resume his efforts immediately.

That investigation came last November when the I.A.A.F. sponsored three days of testing on Pistorius, who gave his consent, in Cologne, Germany, under the supervision of Peter Brüggemann, a professor at the German Sport University.

Brüggemann found that the prosthetics, known as Cheetahs, were more efficient than a human ankle. He also found that they could return energy in maximum speed sprinting and that Pistorius was able to keep up with a few able-bodied sprinters while expending about 25 percent less energy. Based on Brüggemann’s report, the I.A.A.F. decided that Pistorius would not be allowed to compete.

Pistorius’s lawyers, however, argued that the results of the study did not provide enough evidence to make a decision and lodged an appeal in February.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/sports/olympics/17runner.html?hp

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