Oscar Pistorius pulls his Cheetahs from a kitbag, slots his stumps into the
jet-black holsters and takes a little walk, the sickle-like blades curling
from the back of the sockets like a vision of the future. He gets into a
crouch to practise his start and is away, a blur of arms and carbon fibre,
the sound of his artificial limbs against the hard surface of the track not
dissimilar to the musings of a woodpecker.
He half-walks, half-jogs back towards us, his handsome face beaming with
pleasure, mine still coming to terms with the shock of witnessing a double
amputee making a mockery of the concept of disability. “What do you think?”
he asks, his voice twanging with Afrikaans enthusiasm, his cheeks hardly
moving, despite the explosion of energy he has just unleashed. It is
difficult to answer the question in less than a few thousand words.
Pistorius is at the centre of a debate that will shape the nature of sport for
the next century. He wants to compete in the Olympic Games against
able-bodied athletes, an ambition that has left officials groping for a
workable criterion of fairness in the midst of technological advances that
could redefine the limits of athletic endeavour for able and disabled
athletes.
In a nutshell, do Pistorius’s carbon-fibre legs represent unfair competition
vis-à-vis their flesh-and-blood equivalent? What if able-bodied athletes
start to wield technical aides of similar sophistication?
The double-amputee world record-holder for the 100 metres, 200 metres and 400
metres, Pistorius won a silver medal in the 400 metres at the South African
able-bodied championships in March. His personal best of 46.34sec would have
been fast enough to have won gold at every Olympic Games before 1932.
Although a few tenths outside the qualifying standard for next year’s Games
in Beijing, he is confident that he can bridge the gap in the coming months
— he will compete at the Visa Paralympic World Cup in Manchester next month
— opening up the possibility of an unprecedented transition from Paralympics
to Olympics; assuming, that is, the IAAF lifts the ban it slapped on him
last month.
Pistorius was born in Johannesburg in 1986. His parents were informed by
doctors that neither of his legs had a fibula, the long, narrow bone that
runs from just below the kneecap to the foot, forming the lateral part of
the ankle and anchoring the calf muscle. There was little choice but to
allow doctors to amputate both legs midway between the ankle and the knee;
the alternative was life in a wheelchair. His first, faltering steps were
taken on a mini pair of fibreglass limbs.
“There are not many things I have been excluded from because of my
disability,” he says. “I do not have ankle movement, so things like
gymnastics would have been difficult. But I have made an effort to overcome
any difficulties and have tried all manner of sports. I played provincial
tennis at a young age, played soccer and cricket for my school and was in a
trial for the provincial water polo team. I got into athletics a couple of
years ago during rehab after getting injured during a rugby match.”
After finishing training, he puts on his street legs and a pair of jeans and
guides us to his sporty hatchback. I quickly realise that my pseudo-Freudian
questions about social conformity are as redundant as a pair of crutches. He
ratchets the car to nearly double the speed limit, one hand on the steering
wheel, the other on his mobile phone, while bantering about the multifarious
pleasures of life in South Africa. I find a photograph on the floor with him
in the embrace of a gorgeous brunette. “Ex-girlfriend,” he says with a grin.
I have rarely encountered anyone so comfortable in their skin — real or
prosthetic.
We arrive at one of his favourite places on earth, a wildlife sanctuary set
amid the low hills on the outskirts of Pretoria. As we get into an open-top
jeep, Pistorius’s eyes drift into the middle distance, where a plume of
smoke on the horizon symbolises the encroachment of urban sprawl upon this
sea of tranquillity. We trundle down a slope towards a lake, where a wild
boar contemplates our approach.
“I come here once a week,” Pistorius says. “It is very important to have a
balanced lifestyle. Athletics is my No 1 priority, but I give the other
spheres in my life the time they need.”
But the next day Pistorius is in action mode again, running the 100 metres at
the South African Disabled Championships. I take a position 60 metres up the
track and watch as he goes through his last-minute preparations. On the gun
he is out, exploding through the first strides like a demented man on
stilts, arms pumping, face working, audience gasping; 10.91 seconds later he
is scything through the line, the world record shattered and his rivals a
lifetime behind. With a jolt, you begin to clock the unfathomable talent of
this athlete.
“The IAAF has banned me from able-bodied events because they say I have an
unfair advantage because the blades make me taller than I would otherwise
be, but this is nonsense,” he said. “There is a brilliant example of a South
African called Joseph van der Linde. He was an able-bodied athlete who used
to run 10.3sec for the 100 metres, but he lost a leg below the knee when he
was 23 and now runs with an artificial limb like the ones I use. He is 27,
so theoretically in the prime of his life, but his time for the hundred is
11.3. If an artificial leg is supposed to give an advantage, he should have
been faster, not slower.”
Back in my hotel room I find a scientific article on the internet
corroborating his argument. “Even if advances in material design ensure that
energy storage is maximised, a carbon-fibre foot can never release more
energy than it stores and there will always be some dissipation caused by
the imperfect interface between stump and socket. If you considered the case
of identical twins, subjected to the same conditioning but one twin having
two Cheetah limbs, the ‘able-bodied’ competitor would win.”
It is easy to forget that the prosthetics used by disabled sprinters are
neither electronic nor motorised, just swooshes of plastic. It is
Pistorius’s raw athletic ability that has forced the IAAF to confront what
Istvan Gyulail, the general secretary, concedes was “never foreseen as a
realistic possibility”: disabled athletes competing and winning able-bodied
events.
The IAAF Congress will decide in August whether to ratify the ban, which, in
turn, will determine whether Pistorius has the opportunity to fulfil his
dearest ambition of competing in the Olympic Games.
As we leave, Pistorius is turning his mind to his next event over a single
lap. “When I run in the 400 metres my nearest competitor will be reaching
the 290-metre mark when I am finishing the race,” he says. “And those are
guys running on the exact same legs made by the same company.”
There is, perhaps, no greater testament to the prowess of the athlete known as
the fastest man on no legs.
Appliance of science
— Oscar Pistorius’s Cheetahs are made by Ossur, an Iceland-based technology
company, and consist of three parts.
— The socket is made from carbon fibre and fits over the stump of the leg. A
silicone rubber lining provides an interface between the stump and the
socket, protecting sensitive tissue.
— The blade is a super-stiff curve of carbon fibre bolted to the outside of
the socket. The technology is passive in that it stores and releases energy
but does not produce it.
— This is merely the first step in a rapidly moving technology. Hugh Herr, an
assistant professor at the MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and
Technology, wrote recently: “We are at the threshold of a new age when
orthotic and prosthetic appendages will no longer be separate, lifeless
mechanisms but will instead be intimate extensions of the human body,
structurally, neurologically and dynamically.”
All eyes on Manchester
— The Visa Paralympic World Cup will take place in Manchester from May 7-13.
— A total of 340 athletes from 47 countries will compete in four sports:
athletics, track cycling, swimming and wheelchair basketball.
— The event is hosted by the British Paralympic Association and supported by
Visa, UK Sport, Manchester City Council and the Northwest Regional
Development Agency.
— Tickets are available from the website www.visaparalympicworldcup.com
or by phone on 0870 165 2005.
