The 2012 London Olympics is around the corner and South Africa is hoping for 12 medals. Do you think
Oscar Pistorius (The Blade Runner) could get one of these? On the other hand do you think he should be there in the first place? I ask because there is evidence that Pistorius’ artificial legs give him a performance advantage rather than a disadvantage. I have noted the following put out by Dr Ross Tucker from the Sports Science Institute of South Africa. He presents this case under the heading: Oscar Pistorius, and the scientific cover-up and hatchet job he and his band of "scientists" got away with
The following is a direct quote from Dr Tucker:
A South African double-amputee, bursts onto the scene in 2004, declares an intention to run in the Olympic Games in 2007, then goes through two rounds of scientific testing to confirm his claims that the high-tech carbon fibre blades that he runs with (called Cheetahs) do not give him a performance advantage.
Those two rounds of testing are done first at the request of the IAAF in Germany, and then in Texas as part of Pistorius' appeal against the ban issued based on the results from the Germany tests.
But what did the tests show? Somewhere along the journey, the science is hijacked by a massive PR machine that has followed Pistorius since 2007, and which applies pressure to the IAAF to permit his participation, and then ultimately on the process by which the Court of Arbitration ultimately declared that there was insufficient evidence to ban Pistorius.
2011 then was not the year that the Pistorius question was first asked. Rather, it was the year that it became relevant, for Pistorius qualified for the IAAF World Championships and raced in Daegu in August. That created a firestorm of media coverage, and the resultant question was asked. The same will likely be true in 2012, and so this is an issue that will almost certainly be revisited then.
But these are the crucial facts, most of which have been overlooked by the media, or obscured by lies and PR tactics.
The scientific explanation - back to theory, proven by tests
The two rounds of testing revealed fairly conclusively that Pistorius did not "run" in the manner that able-bodied runners do. Mechanically, it was a totally different locomotion, which Peter Bruggemann, the German biomechanist who did the German testing, described as a "bouncing locomotion at a lower metabolic cost".
The "metabolic cost" statement was important, and was made based on tests that showed that Pistorius used 25% less oxygen during 400m sprinting than able-bodied runners. That by itself is not a performance advantage, but it is very important when you keep in mind the entire scientific process. That process must begin with a question and scientific rationale. That question is "Does Pistorius enjoy a performance advantage?" and the rationale is:
- More energy return from carbon fibre than human tendon means that metabolic cost would be reduced. That's important because the ability to run at a given pace for 400m is limited by metabolic changes in the muscle. These can't be measured directly, but metabolic cost is a proxy for them
- Lighter mass of carbon fibre limbs means lower cost of accelerating the limbs, allowing quicker limb movement and therefore sprinting
- Carbon fibre does not fatigue, whereas muscle/tendon is known to be significantly affected by the end of a 400m race
So the metabolic finding by Bruggemann confirmed the first 2 points above. Directly, using less oxygen has little bearing on sprint performance, but it does point to confirmation of energy return, metabolic and performance advantages. On the note of the energy return, Bruggemann measured energy loss in the human tendon at 41%, compared to only 8% for the carbon fibre blade, so the picture came together pretty clearly. Hence the ban. However, there were problems with the research, particularly the measurement of oxygen during sprinting. There's no doubt the conclusion was made too broadly based on the tests, a mistake that would prove costly in the scientific "debate" at CAS, because it gave Pistorius a fairly easy means to refute the finding.
That is, Pistorius was able to appeal the decision and perform his own tests, and his team designed a test that would measure oxygen use during slower, low-intensity running.
Those tests again showed that Pistorius used less oxygen than able-bodied runners, even when running slowly (17% lower, to be precise). However, by "creatively" adding in data from world class distance runners measured over a period of ten years, the researchers were able to manipulate the data sufficiently to show that he was not statistically different from other runners. The fact that these runners were not sprinters, but marathon runners, seemed not to matter to either the scientists, or CAS, or the media who have covered the story.
It's an extra-ordinary comparison to make, particularly when you consider that data do exist for other sprinters. And most tellingly, when you compare Pistorius to these other sprinters, then suddenly you get a picture that shows that he is 14% and 2.3 SD more economical. That's a big difference, and had they included those comparisons, as they should have, then the conclusion of the "scientific" paper would have been totally different - it would have had to conclude that Pistorius is metabolically and mechanically different from able-bodied runners, and these differences are consistent with a performance advantage.
Dr Steve Harris
