Should Oscar Pistorious be Allowed to Compete at the Olympic Games?

Terrence Davidson

Victoria University of Wellington

2013

Victoria University of Wellington

Nick Agar

email: nicholas.agar@vuw.ac.nz

On the 4th of August 2012 South African runner Oscar Pistorius became the first athlete to compete at the Olympic Games while running on prosthetic limbs. Pistorius is a double below the knee amputee who runs on carbon J-shaped fibre blades. He represents a fusion of humanity and technology that will become an increasingly pressing issue for the sporting arena in the coming years. In this essay I use Pistorius as a case study to investigate how decisions regarding the use of enhancement technologies in sport should be made. I argue that the key characteristic that should be assessed is whether Pistorius‟ prosthetic legs mean that he is competing in a different sport to able-bodied athletes when he runs. I contend that the best method for deciding whether or not Pistorius is competing in the same sport as able-bodied athletes is to adopt a balance of excellences view of sport (Devine, 2010). I use this model to show that the excellence of exploiting technical aids is far more important for Pistorius than it is for his able-bodied counterparts. From this I conclude that what Pistorius does when he runs is not comparable to able-bodied runners. Thus he should not be allowed to compete against able-bodied athletes at the Olympic Games.

Keywords:

Disability; Enhancement; Sport

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Qualitative

International

High performance, Sport

People with Disabilities

Events, Professional

Benefits, Capability, Injuries, Performance, Professionals

Running/jogging

1337

July 19, 2013

July 19, 2013