Oscar Pistorius . . . 'brand ambassador' for BT

[DJ...]

So BT chose a handicapped cyborg who always comes last. Seems a better fit for Telkom to be honest...

[Celine]

Oscar Pistorius? More like Oscar Pisses-me-the-hell-off. Losing limbs must absolutely suck the big one, but you've got carbon-freakin'-fibre legs, dude! You will never compete with able-bodied folk on a level playing field. You have no place in the Olympics. Stop guilting the world into giving you free passes.

i was actually going to comment on this. i am getting so tired of his guilt trip he is on. don't play the blame game on the nation, i'm so fed up with hearing that he deserves to be in the able bodied races etc and so forth. get on with your god damn life now. you don't hear natalie du toit carry on like he does now do you. she was in an accident and lost her leg but she uses it for the betterment of others. she raises money for charity etc. yes she would like to compete in the able body races and she has, but you don't hear her "woe is me" stories because she had an accident and lost a leg like you keep hearing this bloody blade runner. sick of now.

[Celine]

and just by the way - when did this become the f'ing robot olympics. curlers with flame throwers to melt the ice, basket ball players with springs bouncing around the court, swimmers with boat motors, runners with rocket back packs. let me know when the terminator and robocop join in i'll start watching 24/7.

[Picard]

and just by the way - when did this become the f'ing robot olympics. curlers with flame throwers to melt the ice, basket ball players with springs bouncing around the court, swimmers with boat motors, runners with rocket back packs. let me know when the terminator and robocop join in i'll start watching 24/7.

I will inform you of the fact that most athletes would have consumed cough syrup by the bucket loads.

Apperantly most any and all pharmaceuticals contain banned substances ... but if it is advertised on TV ... those pharmaceuticals will be cut some slack.

So ...

Benilyn ... jou ma se hoes.

[Fudzy]

and just by the way - when did this become the f'ing robot olympics. curlers with flame throwers to melt the ice, basket ball players with springs bouncing around the court, swimmers with boat motors, runners with rocket back packs. let me know when the terminator and robocop join in i'll start watching 24/7.

Where do you draw the line though? Everything from equipment to training to diet have progressed exponentially over the years.

[HapticSimian]

Where do you draw the line though? Everything from equipment to training to diet have progressed exponentially over the years.

"No carbon fibre legs" would be as good a place to start as any...

[Fudzy]

"No carbon fibre legs" would be as good a place to start as any...

I disagree, the line will continually be pushed out. We cannot progress unless we accept change.

[NCalvo]

Can you believe the Americans. They been accusing him as having a unfair advantage. I mean WTF.

[Fudzy]

If there was medical technology out there that allowed blind people to partake in the Olympic shooting event by affording them a brief FPS type of view of what they are shooting at. Would you be against them competing?

[OzzieCapie]

Give it a rest. It's been found that the prosthetic legs don't give him an unfair advantage.

Even if he had a slight advantage with the legs - which was scientifically disproved by the IAAF - I think the adversity of growing up with no lower legs is already enough of a burden to make it AT LEAST level. If they proved that he had an advantage and banned him, great, but it was the other way around. Why not just leave it at that? Unless you have some kind of proof document that contradicts the IAAF's scientific findings that you'd like to show us.

You are both wrong because you haven't bothered to check the facts.

1) He was banned by IAAF because they had studies which proved he had an advantage.

2) Oscar Pistorius used 'studies' by Hugh Herr - one of developers of Blade- and presented evidence to CAS (Council for Arbitration in Sport) to put in doubt the research used by IAAF to ban it---they didn't present evidence to show 'no advantage', and neither was their evidence peer reviewed nor tested. CAS , because of legal rather than scientific reasons, overturned the IAAF ban. The IAAF did not 'clear' OP..

3) Read the summaries of all testing done at Science of Sport. There you can clearly see how Herr and Kram manipulated and selected data in order to cast doubt on original IAAF findings. It is quite clear - even to people like lawyers it should be- that for example:

• The metabolic cost of him running with the blades are at least 17% lower than that of able bodies sprinters. Herr included distance runners in the data (who have much lower metabolic cost than sprinters) to show that OP was not 'off scale'. What do you think , does that sound like scientifically sound or disengenous???

• He has lower vertical ground reaction forces and horiozontal braking forces than able bodied. In other words he requires less work to manitain the same speed. It does explain why he is slower at the start too.

• More energy return from the flexible carbon blades (92% return) than able bodied get from their tendons (59%), which of course also explains the lower physiological cost.

This is now just being swept under the carpet and in "too hard basket" by IAAF because of the emotions attached to it.
But really, it is unfair, because it is a mechanical aid- simple. Where does it stop? Why not have paralympians like Kurt Fearnely tak part in the marathon with able bodied. Lets use the same emotional arguments about how bad it is to be paralysed, and in fact Fearnely is less mobile than Pistorius so we can use more emotions, can't we. Just let the lawyers and the ignorant public decide rather than scientific fact.

Hypothetically , what will happen when the blade improves - which it is continuously doing- to an extent where someone like OP runs under 40sec---still ok?

I am sorry, there is nothing 'nice' about something based on disengenous argument.

[Celine]

excuse me i do see him having a clear advantage over the able bodied athlete. the able bodied athlete tears their hamstring or pulls a specific muscle while running making them unable to compete because they have to now get their leg sorted out, whereas mr blade runner has his blades - no muscle tearing in the process. get my drift here! he must run in the paralympics designed for the the athletes with disabilities. there are specific categories for specific disabilities in the paralympics. there is nothing of the sort of the able bodied athlete. they all compete in the one and same race, whether they like it or not - whether usain bolt is in the 100 sprint or not. no different categories for them.
enough with all the self indulgence now, i'm sick of it. he will still get a f'ing medal get over it.

[HapticSimian]

...he will still get a f'ing medal get over it.

Doubt it.

[DJ...]

Maybe a participation medal, but certainly not one mined from the earth...

[Celine]

in the paralympics he will get a medal because he is faster than the other wheelchair bound athletes.

[HapticSimian]

in the paralympics he will get a medal because he is faster than the other wheelchair bound athletes.

Ah. DJ... and I seem to misread your statement. Indeed, in fact he has won many and deservedly so. He is damn impressive in his own right. He's just not able-bodied, which really should be all there is to say on the matter.