Why the Blade runner controversy is good for the Paralympics

You probably shouldn’t laugh at a spat about the length of artificial legs at the Paralympics, but it is kind of funny. Plus it’s the only place you would ever see such a debate. Oscar Pistorius’s blunt reaction after he was defeated in the 200m by Brazilian Alan Oliveira might have been ill timed when he needed to be gracious in defeat. Speaking to BBC Channel 4 after the race, he said, “The IPC [International Paralympic Committee] don’t want to listen - the guy’s legs are unbelieveably long. “I’m not taking away from Alan’s performance. He is a great athlete. . .you can’t compete for stride length. We are not competing in a fair race. The IPC have their regulations but they mean the athletes can make themselves unbelievably high. We tried to address the issue but it has fallen on deaf ears. The blades are four inches higher than they should be. The guys are running ridiculous times.” [caption id=“attachment_442018” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AP[/caption] The IPC insisted all the blades were measured and that “Oliveira’s blades passed the test and there was no infringement of the rules.” On Monday morning, Pistorius apologised for the timing of his comments, but said he still wanted to talk to the IPC. Regardless, what Pistorius achieved by complaining that the IPC needed to clarify the rules, was to make the Paralympics even more mainstream. Suddenly people were debating both the race, the length of artificial limbs and the post-race reaction. That the IPC is being challenged in such a public way is good. With the power of social media during the 2012  Olympics and Paralympics, audiences and sports fans demand answers and demand them immediately. And the IPC will increasingly have to answer questions about their decisions. For instance, the disqualification of cyclists in the velodrome - some got two restarts while others got none - opens questions about the specifics of the rules and how they are applied by the governing body, the UCI. Also the reclassification of swimmers, particularly from the United States, have yet to be adequately explained. How can Mallory Weggemann, who is paralysed from the waist down, suddenly be considered to be more capable than she was when the IPC first classed her as an S7? And if they were the ones who put her in that category, why should all her world records from the past three years be wiped out? And why are only a quarter of winning athletes drug tested? This is apparently a 20 per cent increase from 2008 and the justification is the sheer number of competitors. But if you want Paralympians to be treated like other athletes, then you have to be as suspicious of them too. Which takes us back to legs. Pistorius’s questions about the length of the running blades - and the South African concerns apparently raised previously - are not easily answered, as he himself knows. In his own bid to compete in the Olympics, he had to repeatedly argue that his artificial limbs gave him no unfair advantage. But until you have many more races and studies comparing those with and without the blades, it will be impossible to say for sure. We may never know because it is unlikely someone like Usain Bolt is going to give up his current legs for artificial replacements just for the rest of us to see what happens to his speed. The more we debate the technological mergers with the human body, the performance of elite disabled athletes and the governing bodies of the sports they compete in, the better. The Paralympics can then become an equally or parallel segment of elite sport that the public follow, support, and argue about. Even if there is nothing wrong with the reclassifications or length of legs, the more scrutiny of elite Paralympic sport, the more the games will have come have age and ultimately get the public attention they deserve.