Published: 5 November, 2009, 15:22
Edited: 5 November, 2009, 15:39
Oscar Pistorius, dubbed “blade runner”, scandalized the sports community when he applied for the 2008 Olympics. His J-shaped prostheses allegedly gave him unfair advantage. A new study suggests it’s not true.
The initial ban on the South African double amputee runner’s participation was later revised, but he failed to qualify. He later broke several records in the Paralympic games that year. Still, the issue of artificial limbs and the advantage they may give disabled sportsmen over able-bodied competitors remains on the table.
A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge tested the “Cheetah Flex-Foot” – the carbon fiber prostheses which Pistorius runs on – on a group of single amputee athletes, so that the biological and artificial limbs could be compared directly, reports Science magazine. Six elite sprinters ran on a treadmill, while researchers measured the force each limb generated as it struck the belt.
The force, called ground reaction force (GRF), is collated with the speed a runner can reach. At all speeds, the prosthetic limb produced 9% less GRF than its biological counterpart. Moreover, there was no difference in leg swing times between the two limbs – which overturns the notion that they can be swung faster due to lesser weight.
This observation is confirmed by the study of videos of the 2008 Paralympic and Olympic 100-meter men's finals done by the same team. "From the data we've collected so far, there doesn't seem to be any advantage in using a running-specific prosthesis," says biomechanicist Alena Grabowski.