So Do Prosthetic Limbs Give Sprinters an Advantage Or Not?

OK. He should not compete just on the fact that he is different. Men and Women are different so they don't compete together. I am not saying one is better than the other im just saying that it will be to hard to judge if there is a enhancement or not ever. You could say that a mans ability to grow significantly larger muscles than women is an advantage but we don't. We accept the face that they are different.

thats a good coment

At first blush, I thought "Oh God, don't scientists have anything better to do. . ."

Then I thought further: Since the winner in these competitions is determined by Seconds or less-- eliminate the Lower Calf and Foot-- along with BONE and watery flesh and replace it with a LIGHTWEIGHT laminate or whatever space-age flex material the prosthesis is and you've changed the Bio-metrics of Mass & inertia. There may very well be LESS weight to pull and less Inertia to overcome as the upper legs scissor the lower extremities. Granted the runner is penalized with the loss of muscular control and foot-sole 'Grip' of the running surface, etc etc. But still. . .

So the question is-- How much weight is there in the missing limb? Perhaps we can get this rather macabre answer without having to wait for another twistedly 'informative' chapter in the SAW franchise.

look the answer is here. DO OUR LEG BONES BEND AND SPRING FORWARD WHEN WE RUN? no of course they don't duh! the prosthetic sport legs are very similar to leaf springs in horse carriages and very old antique cars. carbon reinforced metal, plastic or concrete; notice that when you add carbon to any solid matter it makes it 10x stronger and flexible! remember the article about flexcrete? maybe they should have a different league for sports with these legs. men and woman are seperated when it comes to sports. they should have their own. there. done.

The article points out just how much research is being put into solving the question. More needs to be done until clear eveidence shows us that artifical limbs do give an unfair advantage.

This is idiocy. Common sense alone tells us these things grant an unfair advantage. Time the guy running a race without them, then time him with them on. In one, he has world class speed, in the other, you need a calander.

They are performance enhancers, in that they enhance his performance past his physical capabilities. Are you saying that if science made me the 6 million dollar man it would be fair for me to compete, just so long as I almost always came in second?

This is not an issue of "equal playing field." That would be something like the swiming super-suits, which they had to offer to everyone before they were allowed. Thus, no one can argue that Phelps was the fastest, because everyone had them on.

On the other hand, no one really believes that Phelps beat all those world records fairly in equal competition. The suit gave him an unfair advantage against previous records.

Thus, while these artifical legs are great, and this guy should have a great time at the special olympics, he unfit to run in the Olympics without special assistance, which, of course is not to be allowed.

After all, if my grandma's jazzy chair doesn't give her an advantage over the other sprinters, can she be in the olympics? It is just equaling out the playing field against her disability (being 96). After all, it can't be too unfair, since most sprinters can outrun her chair.

Oakspar and ggouge, you guys nailed it. Regardless of whether or not they make you better then the competition, its simply not fair to lump prosthetic runners, and non-prosthetic runners in the same group.

@Marrach: I was thinking the same thing, those prosthetics have to weigh a LOT less then what they're replacing, was this taken into account for the research?

and finally @gammaraylaser... How much thought did you really put into your comment? Joints (like our ankle) provide the same "bending and springing" action you seem to think we're missing.

What’s really interesting to me about this is that not too long ago people with amputated limbs were looked at very differently, they were considered handicapped.

Now we are trying to debate if they have the right to compete with “normal” people because of the advantages they have.....

It seems to me the real advantage or disadvantage people have exists only in our perception of them....

Brian

@Brian:

I think you've distilled the argument pretty well right there. In writing this piece I (obviously) spoke to parties from both side of the argument. One claims the time when artificial limbs surpass the performance of our own has come and gone. The other thought it ridiculous that removing the intricate machineries of muscle, tendon and bone in our lower legs could somehow enhance overall performance. We seem to be stuck in a gray area right now, but it's inevitable that technology will at some point decidedly overtake our biological abilities.

The next generation of prostheses, driven unfortunately by the number of young men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan without their biological limbs, are going to challenge those perceptions even more. For more on that, I highly recommend checking out that piece by Aimee Mullins that we link to at the end of the above story./cd

I'm sorry guys but it's not the same. Case in point:
- The guys has the carbon fiber absorbing every shock/step in it's molecular structure and then releasing that energy to his advantage on the launch to the next step. Whereas, a normal runner without prosthetic, has to do double-time, when their calf muscles first of all, work hard to absorb the shock of the forward step, then they also have to propel the runner to the next step. There's no storing of kinetic energy in human tissue. So the normal runner, expends way more energy trying to stay running, whereas the one with no legs sort of bounces along like a trampoline, somewhat.
- The reduced weight of having no lower legs also adds an advantage over he with legs.

It's one thing to feel sympathetic towards a double amputee, but it's an entirely different issue to call them one-and-the-same. That is just NOT true!!!

The guy has no legs below the knee. Clearly this is an unfair advantage. If he wants to race against the two-leggers they should handicap him so that he doesn't have an unfair advant......... oh wait.

Nevermind.

There's no way to know for certain because we can't test how he'd run the same day under the same conditions, but with his legs intact. So, on some level, those reams of data they're arguing over are meaningless.

It seems patently obvious that what he is doing is different from what the other runners are doing. So, sorry, but he should be in his own category, not too much different from the wheel chair runners. Do the wheel chairs give them an advantage? Why even ask the question? It's a different event. Period.

The day he runs on a sore ankle or stubs his toe is the day he can claim to be like the other runners.

Well no matter what we are going to have to ask these kinds of questions in the near future.

What about artifical arms in sports, or brains in Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Stomachs in eating contests?

The competitive fields are going to start looking like automotive shows with whoever has the best parts wins.

@ tim maguire

There are plenty of ways to test weather or not amputies have an unfair advantage or not. We can test the restriction of airflow along the limb, differences in force exerted along the running surface, and others.

First question, was this guy a sprinter before he lost his legs? If so what were his best times? compare that to what he's running now. If he shaved off 12 seconds thats a pretty clear advantage.

Second question, If this guy has the cojones to be a sprinter after he lost his legs shouldn't he be allowed to run? I don't see a level playing field for him in the special olympics really. I think he could totally take a guy with arm crutches. I mean look at him he is an athlete.

Third question, Isn't it true technology affects most sports already? Baseball bats, golfballs, golf clubs, football pads, Hockey gear? This guy has legs.