Want Real Life Portal Shoes/Boots?

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Shegokigo

Shegokigo

It'll only cost you your legs!


Apparantly this is old news, but I just came across the picture and have never heard of it till now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Pistorius

So he's "cheating" and alot of comittee's want to ban him/strip him of his medals? Honestly I'm not sure how to feel about it. I mean on one hand the prosthetics might be helping "too much" considering all his medals. On the other, he might be working 3x as hard as everyonelse to get that speed.
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

I'd say it's an unfair advantage, but I'd also say he wouldn't be able to compete otherwise. If he was using a normal prosthetic, he wouldn't be able to run at all.

Maybe it's time to start preparing for the inevitable Cyborg Olympics?
 
strawman

strawman

Studies have proven that he spends significantly less energy maintaining a given speed than a normal runner would. In other words, he would normally be at the back of the pack, but the artificial limbs place him near the front.

This is not unusual, though - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/sports/21swim.html

Lots of "technical aids" are banned from competition. Even knee braces for injury and support have to be approved (and proven to not add advantage).

Let him compete all he wants in the paralympics.

Disallow him from competing in the olympics.

In the same way that many athletes believe you have to use drugs in order to compete, if such devices are allowed, eventually every athlete will have to use them to compete.

Imagine if a front-runner got that 30% energy saving boost, rather than the mediocre runner described in the article? I suspect a lot of athletes, who already destroy their bodies with training and drugs, would be more than happy to give up their lower legs if it guaranteed them a few more golds.
 
doomdragon6

doomdragon6

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Thing is, they already have boots/whatever that can do something like that; there's no reason an athlete would even need to cut off their legs to do it.
 
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