CNN Op-Ed: On foot-free Oscar Pistorius, a medical writer is his own source
Ford Vox has alternated in life as medical writer and practicing MD, with doctoring his day job (this is his eighth appearance on the tracker and he has written for the LATimes, Reuters, Newsweek, Slate, Salon, and more). He has out this week on CNN’s Opinion page his explanation to sports fans – and sports writers – why the man with no fibulae and not much else below the knee, sprinter Oscar Pistorius, is entitled to run against fully able-bodied runners in regular track meets. That includes in the Olympic Games. Pistorius is famous for his velocity while wearing springy prostheses for lower legs. He’s not the fastest man in the world but he really moves.
Vox is a neurorehabilitation physician in Boston. While he focusses on people recovering from brain injury, he knows his way around the rehab unit generally, one must assume. This piece is something for anybody, whether sports fan, sports writer, or track meet organizer, to ponder. I, as have many, have thought that maybe those elastic blades to which Pistorius has attached the soles of running shoes might provide unfair advantage - like mechanical steroids. After all, if some paraplegic entered a sprint in the wind-up chair he or she usually uses and that goes like 60 mph in six seconds after the occupant cranks up its mainspring, that wouldn’t be fair even if it is muscle powered. And rocket chairs would be way over the line – even S. Hawking couldn’t get away with that.
But Vox makes a strong case, arguing from personal experience, that to think this particular equipment is easier, or more dangerous to other runners, or in any other way should be banned is just wrong. Vox does do some reporting, consulting with a physiologist to debunk one critique that concluded Pistorius’s artificial feet and ankles tax his metabolic stores less than do an intact runner’s legs. It has to do with anaerobic metabolism. Then, having an expert in his skin with him, he declares in his voice, “the contention that carbon fiber technology gives an unfair boost seems laughable.”
I’m convinced. No need to screw up a man’s career by solving him out of the race before one is sure there is a problem. If prosthetics consistently start showing up on race winners, then it’ll be time to consider new regulations.
But still, a little voice keeps wondering in my head. The question may not be whether Pistorius could beat everybody at the Olympics, but only whether, if there were a parallel universe where Oscar Pistorius has a full complement of limbs, could that one ever beat the one in our universe in a foot race?
- Charlie Petit
