{"id":14228,"date":"2012-09-04T03:39:27","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T01:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/09\/paralympics-pistorius-shows-disabled-sport-can-stand-controversy\/"},"modified":"2012-09-04T03:39:27","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T01:39:27","slug":"paralympics-pistorius-shows-disabled-sport-can-stand-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/paralympics-pistorius-shows-disabled-sport-can-stand-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Paralympics-Pistorius shows disabled sport can stand controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Kevin Liffey and Chris Wickham<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">LONDON, Sept 3<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; South African &#8220;blade runner&#8221;<br \/>\nOscar Pistorius has unleashed a debate about disabled sport with<br \/>\nan emotional claim that a rival in the T44 200 metres final at<br \/>\nthe London Paralympics beat him thanks to longer prosthetic<br \/>\nlegs.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pistorius had not been beaten over 200m for nine years, but<br \/>\nthe result of Sunday&#8217;s final was less of a shock than the<br \/>\npost-race outburst of a man who is the face of disabled sport<br \/>\npartly thanks to his dignified campaign to be allowed to<br \/>\nchallenge able-bodied runners at the Olympics.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The size of some of the other guys&#8217; legs are unbelievably<br \/>\nlong,&#8221; Pistorius told Britain&#8217;s Channel 4 television.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re not racing a fair race. The International Paralympic<br \/>\nCommittee (IPC) have the regulations, but the regulations allow<br \/>\nthe athletes to make themselves unbelievably high.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Besides detracting from the victory of Brazil&#8217;s Alan<br \/>\nOliveira, it was a surprising rant from a man who had convinced<br \/>\nsports administrators that his own carbon-fibre blades gave him<br \/>\nno advantage over able-bodied runners.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>So can Paralympic medals be decided by the length of an<br \/>\nartificial leg? And where does that leave a branch of sport<br \/>\nstriving to be taken as seriously as able-bodied sport?<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>SLIPPERY SLOPE<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kevin Liffey and Chris Wickham LONDON, Sept 3 (Reuters) &#8211; South African &#8220;blade runner&#8221; Oscar Pistorius has unleashed a debate about disabled sport with an emotional claim that a rival in the T44 200 metres final at the London Paralympics beat him thanks to longer prosthetic legs. Pistorius had not been beaten over 200m [&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-14228","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\/14228","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=14228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}