{"id":11890,"date":"2012-06-27T11:59:46","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T09:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/06\/olympics-blade-runner-still-subject-of-scientists-debate\/"},"modified":"2012-06-27T11:59:46","modified_gmt":"2012-06-27T09:59:46","slug":"olympics-blade-runner-still-subject-of-scientists-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/olympics-blade-runner-still-subject-of-scientists-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympics-&#8216;Blade Runner&#8217; still subject of scientists&#8217; debate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Patrick Lannin<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">June 27<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; While South African athlete Oscar<br \/>\nPistorius attempts to become the first amputee runner to compete<br \/>\nat the Olympic Games, scientists are still arguing whether his<br \/>\nartificial limbs give him a critical advantage or not.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pistorius, born without fibulas and who had his lower legs<br \/>\namputated when a baby, uses carbon fibre prosthetic running<br \/>\nblades and is hoping to qualify for the 400 metres at the Games.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pistorius beat the Olympic qualifying time of 45.30 in<br \/>\nPretoria in March but must repeat that performance in an<br \/>\ninternational meeting before June 30 to make the team for the<br \/>\nLondon Games which start on Jul y 27 .<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pistorius, who has a personal best is 45.07 , won the 100,<br \/>\n200 and 400 gold medals at the 2008 Paralympic Games. He also<br \/>\nbecame the first amputee to compete at the athletics world<br \/>\nchampionships when he ran in Daegu, South Korea last year.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The science is fully clear that &#8230; Mr. Pistorius runs<br \/>\nconsiderably faster with his artificial limbs,&#8221; said Peter<br \/>\nWeyand, associate professor of Applied Physiology and<br \/>\nBiomechanics at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>He said in an email that the findings, with Matthew Bundle,<br \/>\nassistant professor at the University of Montana&#8217;s Department of<br \/>\nHealth and Human Performance, al so showed P istorius h ad an<br \/>\nadv antage over one legged amputees.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pistorius has already won a legal case to compete against<br \/>\nable-bodied athletes after the Court of Arbitration for Sport in<br \/>\n2008 overturned a ban which had been imposed by the<br \/>\nInternational Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The court said its ruling applied only to Pistorius and only<br \/>\nto the type of artificial limb he uses and that the IAAF had<br \/>\nfailed to prove its case.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Patrick Lannin June 27 (Reuters) &#8211; While South African athlete Oscar Pistorius attempts to become the first amputee runner to compete at the Olympic Games, scientists are still arguing whether his artificial limbs give him a critical advantage or not. Pistorius, born without fibulas and who had his lower legs amputated when a baby, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-11890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11890\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}