Oscar Pistorius Study Released

[Jon Kuniholm]

You may remember the controversy before the Beijing Olympics last year surrounding South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius. The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) had initially ruled that the sprinter, with bilateral congenital below-knee limb absence, could not compete at the games. An independent study commissioned by the IAAF determined that Pistorius was offered a mechanical advantage by his "cheetah legs," of more than 30%, constituting a "technical aid," in violation of the rules. Professor Peter Brüggemann at the German Sport University in Cologne, told the International Sports Press Association that Pistorius' legs "return 90 per cent of the impact energy, compared to the 60 per cent of the human foot," and determined that "his aerobic performance was worse, his anaerobic performance was the same... The fact that he still runs the same times as the other runners is due to his prosthetics." The original study has never been released. At the time, I thought that it was strange that the study appeared to consider the lower leg only as a spring, ignoring the possibility that the gastrocnemius (calf muscle) contributes anything positive to the effort. As Pistorius' handlers were quoted as saying, "If you think having carbon-fiber legs will make you a faster sprinter, have the operation and we’ll see you at the track."

Pistorius challenged the ban, taking his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, with the help of another independent study, commissioned by Pistorius, and was ruled eligible to compete. The second study was conducted by a team of scientists including Hugh Herr, MIT professor and himself a bilateral leg amputee. The point became moot, however, when Pistorius failed to qualify for the games in any event. He went on to compete in the Paralympics, winning three gold medals.

This blog post by Ross Tucker and Jonathan Dugas offers an interesting parsing of the scientific arguments involved, and is worth a read. Tucker and Dugas attacked Herr's analysis in 2005, saying "Remarkably, the research later carried out by Pistorius (which has yet to be published or peer-reviewed, and which was done in 'top-secret' with not a single independent witness or representative from the IAAF present) found the opposite--no advantage, and 20-30% was made to disappear." Tucker and Dugas, citing Herr's relationship with "cheetah leg" manufacturer Ossur, suggest a conflict of interest. Full disclosure of this, and independent peer review, would do a lot to addressing this concern. In the context of a then unpublished study, even the appearance of a conflict of interest is a problem.

While Brüggemann's original study remains unpublished, Herr et al's now has been. The LA Times reports that the second study commissioned by Pistorius has now been published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Applied Physiology. The paper, co-authored by Peter Weyand, an assistant professor at Southern Methodist University, is inconclusive about whether the legs offer Pistorius an advantage. "I can’t answer that question," Weyand told the Times. "Those of us who conducted the test do not agree on that."

Controversy surrounding equipment is nothing new to the games. Americans protested British shoes in the 1908 Olympic Tug-of-War, and more modern controversies have surrounded Speedo technical suits for swimmers, shoes, and more. Tucker and Dugas also discussed the Speedo issue.

I find it interesting that while much of the debate about swimsuits surrounded whether or not the suits offered any buoyancy, there appeared to be no problem with dramatic claims of reduced drag, and no testing done by any sports regulatory authority. Given that there are many items of equipment that might offer similar dramatic gains in performance, why is it that technological equipment improvements like the Speedo suits are not subjected to general empirical testing in the same way that Pistorius and his legs were? It's pretty clear that these suits offer an advantage, so what's the difference?

One thing is for sure, the controversy will continue. Hopefully, the remaining issues will be further examined in the papers that

Weyand has promised. With the publication of

Weyand and Herr's paper, the scientific community can begin a true independent review of all of the issues involved. It will be more complete if Brüggemann's original study is eventually published, and the IAAF and other relevant regulatory authorities can create a more coherent and universal criteria on which these decisions can be based.

Jon

[Wolf Schweitzer]

Swimsuit performance of rather simple technical matter (soak fabric with silicone or latex) for horrendous prices are good business *only* if they offer a substantial advantage. That advantage is the sales argument (for the manufacturer) and the reason to ban them (too expensive?) at the same time. Conversely, some testing found no significant advantage, other testing did, and yet other testing found that 'belief in a particular swimsuit being the best' was the decisive factor. Personally I believe that other factors (training, let's face it) are far more important, and that wearing a no drag regular par of jammers should be perfectly enough.

The leg situation is dramatically different. Without prostheses, Pistorius simply cannot run. Sprinters with two legs simply cannot wear the prostheses. If Pistorius is faster with these legs, Ossur can sell more. If he has no advantage, Ossur looks bad but Pistorius can try to qualify. We all know that really, Pistorius will waste energy no matter what (tolerance fields, to start with), and so the technical aspect of this is a theoretical moot point up to the moment when someone claims the Cheetah legs would be an advantage. Purely from a practical viewpoint, the issue *only* becomes interesting once a disabled runner competes for non-disabled competitions and the fact that Pistorius is a Paralympic Gold medal runner and does not even qualify for the Olympics really speaks for itself.

Besides, the regulatory crowd, the rule makers, are mainly characterized by the word 'insecurity'. I also have a pair of Speedo LZR jammers and they do fill with water. They are nice to play with but a horror to wear, feelingwise. It feels like a big bag parachute type of water that impedes the swim. I have no idea what impact on the actual time they have - even if they 'are' fast they feel extremely slow - and psychological impacts can definitely be significant so if anything one would have to wear these for training a lot - just to get used to them.

If anything is to be said about training: training quality itself is getting better. Mentally and physiologically. There are big training blocks today that I can swim with a healing shoulder injury and not feel a thing. That means the trainer put this together knowing a lot about strain and recovery. And mental can-do-ism is key. I won Silver once wearing beach trunks, but going full blast and hugely enjoying myself. I even had coins in the pocket from getting a hot chocolate before at the cafeteria of the competition site for that particular swim.