to disagree with Pistorius competing against able bodied athletes?

[entropyglitter]

He is using a different method of propulsion? It looks more like running than, for instance, using a wheelchair does, but looks can be deceiving and it's still fairly transparently different?

I definitely don't get the A qualification time part of it all, because wheelchair athletes are way faster than the able bodied from 800m onwards....so how come they aren't competing in the olympics as well as the paralympics in 2012? presumably because they would actually win

And while I'm on the topic, how come there is a separate event in high jump for women and men but not for short and tall? Or in other words why are women given a special dispensation for being slightly less good at high jump but short people aren't?

Are you saying that it's unfair on him, or unfair on other athletes? As far as I know, he appealed several times to be allowed to compete with able bodied athletes, after numerous tests showed that the equipment he uses poses no advantage (ie. it looks quite springy, but it's not making him go faster!)

And for your slightly weird, unrelated point about the high jump... there are separate events for men and women for every single discipline. Athletes with a certain body type are (almost) always going to train for an event which they are designed for. You can't compare the two, because every single event has a particular body type which will be of an advantage.

So, sorry, YABU and your points don't really make sense.

If he stood a chance of winning the powers that be wouldn't allow him to compete.Maybe in this case it's tokenism that raises the profile of disabled athletics?
Which isn't a bad thing.
And I had to laugh at the short and the tall high jump segregation,thanks for the giggle :)

Its not making him go any faster than what/who? Are they comparing him with and without? His stride pattern is different and his profile of speed over the race is different. In fact its very similar to wheelchair racing in that respect. Starts slow but doesnt suffer as much tiring towards the end. So over 400m apparently wheelchair athletes also dont have an advantage (the wheelchair record is still 2 seconds down on the able bodied record).

I thinks it's unfair on him and the able bodied athletes and definitely on the wheelchair athletes....

The point about women is that I can't really see why they should get separate events at all. Athletics only makes sense if it is a search for the best/fastest/tallest etc. Having a separate event for people just because they have suboptimal genes for say sprinting is the beginning of the end. I have suboptimal genes not because I am female but because I am short and stocky, so where is my olympic class?

I can see your point entropyglitter so I can't say you're being unreasonable.
Imagine a world where male boxers fight female boxers and ladies play rugby with men ?
It couldn't work and would just be car crash sports.
I'm still mulling over the lack of thought the organisers of athletic events have for short high jumpers or weedy weightlifters.

So what I would like to see at the olympics is competitions between people drawn at random from each country's population! I mean why should we get to be proud because we have the tallest male genetic freak who could be bothered to train day in day out for his whole adult life? Thats pretty much just down to random statistics.

What a country could really be proud of is that its population is fit and healthy in general - which could be tested by entering a random member of the public into the 100m. America wouldn't do so well then, would they?

I suggest you try the shot putt.

What a country could really be proud of is that its population is fit and healthy in general - which could be tested by entering a random member of the public into the 100m. America wouldn't do so well then, would they?

Now THAT is genius. I'd actually watch an event run on those lines. Though I'd hope to God I wasn't ever picked...

The really annoying thing about the high jump is you could fix it! If you took the height as the height above the athletes centre of mass it would be much 'fairer' (in that it would only discriminate against people with less active metabolisms or less springy legs or smaller lungs or.....)

Maybe the UK could enter the race to the mcdonalds food counter relay?
Or the 200 meter cough and wheeze dash to the bike sheds?

Yup I would much rather watch the general public out on the track and field :) I think there is something fairly creepy about otherwise sane adult human beings spending every waking moment practising to be the best they can possibly be at, for instance, running 110 meters of 10 high hurdles....and then there are the constant drugs tests...nope the whole thing is insane.

So I reckon you would pull the names out of the hat about a month in advance and then you would be living the dream for a month before starring in your own disaster movie! I would LOVE to be picked out of a hat for the olympics!

I tried shot put...I was shit at it....not really sure why.

Javelin was my best event but possibly just because noone else could get it to stick in the ground right.

Was worried this would all be late night rubbish....but now im wondering if I emailed Lord Seb Coe would it be too late to change the things for 2012?

Boxing has weight classes, so why not height classes for high jump.

You could have leg-length classes for running too.

But then there would be so many more races, and I find them all quite boring in the end, so I disagree with you because I don't want there to be 5 height classes of high jump.

I think the idea of having height categories in the high jump might legitimise short people.

Does it really make a difference though

presuming there is any truth in those figures. Then t would appear that shorter people are better at jumping 'higher' than their own body than tall people. Maybe they should change the high jump to 'differentials'.............the person that jumped the highest in comparison to their hieght...........

Would it be your height plus x metres?

Or your height multiplied by x times?

erm yeah but more importantly what do you think of the random draw olympics concept? Just one category for each event but the participants are entered after being drawn at random from each countries population?

If I were randomly drawn I think I would say "no thanks, I have no interest in wearing lycra and running around jumping over things".

High jump is hard, lots more than just height involved.
I'm tall and I was bobbins at highjump at school.

lycra is almost certainly optional...

seriously? you wouldn't want to pit yourself against random people from all over the world? In front of a packed stadium??

Okay so I suppose that while the 10K walk might be okay I have to admit that the pole vault is going to be a train wreck...

Still you are unlikely to be picked and watching other people with no training etc try the pole vault would be very entertaining...all be it in the total wipeout vein of entertainment.

and being top of the medal table in the real people olympics would actually be something for a country to be proud of.

sponsoring elite athletes genetic freaks is a total waste of money with respect to trying to improve the health and fitness of the general public as a whole....

OP - I think you might be on to something here

Perhaps we should pilot the idea next summer from the MN population!

Obviously olympic athletes train hard and that's very laudable, but doesn't elite sport basically just boil down to exploiting innate physical advantage? Usain Bolt's special leg fibres etc. So why should we care about classifying how they do it, as long as they do do it? Why should we care anyway?

"What a country could really be proud of is that its population is fit and healthy in general - which could be tested by entering a random member of the public into the 100m. America wouldn't do so well then, would they?"

Best idea I have heard in years

Oh also I don't think the bloke with the springers should be competing against people with legs. For loads and loads of reasons.

You have something with the 'random Olympics'. It is weird that people train the way they do just to run a distance of 100 m, to throw a javelin or jump the long jump. The way it used to be where people generally had normal lives/ normal jobs and squeezed their training in when they could was better. I prefer team sports anyway that last longer or tennis etc.