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?

Random draw would be fun - if only to see who failed the drugs tests....

Presumably all will win prizes?

Right at least 5 people have agreed with the genius of the random olympics....Im off to the bbc website to see if Pinsent or any of their other bloggers are receptive to the idea....

totally agree that all athletics is pointless and it's a very very odd thing to want to spend your life doing...

The other possible suggestion is to allow drugs. I mean why not? People are already putting their bodies through stress they werent designed for so why not go the whole hog? Would certainly make it more interesting....

I would definitely like to see the cannabis pole-vault....

We've already had the cannabis snow-boarding, haven't we?

Cannabis snowboarder.

Good point!

although I didnt really mean trace amounts left over from the day before stoned...

Im thinking running the wrong way down the run up and then stopping to accuse your pole of being a mushroom stoned.

yup lightweight rowing is a great example!

Well I have spammed Matthew Pinsent....and I very very much doubt I will hear back from him...

:)

Oh, ffs, the guy was born with no calf-bones and has had to fight so hard to get where he is, compared with the guys who were born with intact legs. Let him compete, he deserves it! It's hardly as if they'll all be asking for amputations to keep up, is it?

But it's not like taking drugs, which is something available to all athletes and has rightfully been banned. These are very special circumstances and he has been allowed to run because the artificial limbs have been shown to be of no advantage to him. And like I say, it's not like he's going to start a trend, is it?

Well you need to decide whether all competitions need to be open to all people or not. If you have decided that people who are disabled and use different means of getting around can compete then you need to stick to that in all cases. You can't just pick and choose.

I also don't think they can have any way of telling how fast this man would have been able to run if he had his own legs. He might have had dodgy feet or injured his calf muscle or anything. Looking at him run it is clear that the way he is moving is not the same as someone using their own calves and feet and I don't see how anyone can say that his running would have been exactly the same with limbs.

chip no doubt all of the wheelchair athletes have trained extremely hard, have had hard lives and deserve a break but they wont be allowed to compete against the able bodied because they would win. But maybe they are all exceptional athletes too. How can you possibly prove whether any of them have an advantage or not?

The simple fact that his stride length is longer than any other man his height is reason enough to determine that we are not matching like for like.