{"id":14231,"date":"2012-09-04T03:39:31","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T01:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/09\/paralympics-pistorius-complaint-is-weak-says-sports-scientist\/"},"modified":"2012-09-04T03:39:31","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T01:39:31","slug":"paralympics-pistorius-complaint-is-weak-says-sports-scientist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/paralympics-pistorius-complaint-is-weak-says-sports-scientist\/","title":{"rendered":"Paralympics-Pistorius complaint is weak, says sports scientist"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n

By Toby Davis<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

LONDON, Sept 3<\/span> (Reuters) – Oscar Pistorius was not beaten
\nbecause his opponent’s blades were longer, a professor of sports
\nengineering told Reuters on Monday.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

The South African, dubbed the “Blade Runner”, was upset by
\nBrazil’s Alan Oliveira in the final of the Paralympic men’s 200
\nmetres and prompted controversy when he used a post-race
\ninterview to question the legitimacy of his defeat.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Pistorius suggested that his opponent’s prosthetics had
\nartificially lengthened his stride, giving him an unfair
\nadvantage.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

According to professor Steve Haake of Sheffield Hallam
\nUniversity, however, stride length and the size of his
\nprosthetics were not the deciding factors in the result.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“The practical outcome of larger blades is a greater stride
\nlength, assuming you turn over your legs at the same rate,”
\nprofessor Haake told Reuters in a telephone interview. “But to
\ndo that, the mass of the legs needs to be smaller. It is called
\nthe conservation of angular momentum.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“Imagine the experiment when you spin someone round on an
\noffice chair with their arms outstretched. If they bring their
\narms in, they speed up. It is the same effect with athletes’
\nprosthetics. When the mass is closer to the centre they are
\neasier to spin.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

“Just making the legs longer, therefore, doesn’t necessarily
\nmake Oliveira quicker … In any case, if you look at Oliveira,
\nhe actually took more strides, which means a shorter stride
\nlength. It was that that won him the race.”<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Professor Haake also questioned whether Pistorius, who runs
\nagainst able-bodied athletes and competed in last month’s
\nOlympics, had damaged his argument that his prosthetics do not
\ngive him an advantage.
\n\u00a0 Continued…<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Toby Davis LONDON, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Oscar Pistorius was not beaten because his opponent’s blades were longer, a professor of sports engineering told Reuters on Monday. The South African, dubbed the “Blade Runner”, was upset by Brazil’s Alan Oliveira in the final of the Paralympic men’s 200 metres and prompted controversy when he […]<\/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-14231","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\/14231","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=14231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}