Plus / minus zero: the advantages and disadvantages of athletes with lower leg prostheses, such as Oscar Pistorius in London in 2012, cancel each other out.
Image: AFP
According to a British study, athletes with prostheses in some disciplines have no advantage over athletes with “biological” legs. The scientists advocate approval.
THEscar Pistorius set a world record in 2012. 46.68 seconds for 400 meters – that was the fastest time with which the sprinter ran to gold at the Paralympics in London. Shortly before, the South African Olympic Committee had nominated Pistorius for the 4 x 400 meter relay at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The South African, who was sentenced to fifteen years imprisonment for murder in 2014, started as the first top athlete to be amputated on both sides. Never before has a prosthetic runner been allowed to compete in the Olympics. The result: eighth place. The road to Olympic qualification was long and a heated debate. It divides the world of sports to this day: the question of whether athletes benefit from artificial prostheses and whether they can therefore be excluded from athletics competitions and the Olympic Games.
A new study from the UK published last week by the Royal Society, the British academy of science, could fuel that debate. Because the British and American doctors, sports scientists and biologists around the study director Owen N. Beck, who otherwise conducts research at Emory University in Atlanta, have been able to gain new knowledge through running tests: “The use of leg prostheses in 400-meter runs is with you Look at the key performance indicators, not clearly advantageous in comparison to the use of biological legs. “
.
