The wrong legs

So, “Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius had his outburst and has now apologised for it.

What was it about?

Well, his competitor's legs were too long.

Sorry?

Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to comment on the Paralympics unless anything particularly new cropped up - well, this is that.

Now, aside from the uncomfortable timing - within seconds of someone else winning and therefore coming across not just as sour grapes but properly casting a cloud and then raining all over the parade of a fellow competitor - for which Oscar has very properly and flatteringly apologised, there is still the question - how long should your blades be?

Or should you be allowed blades at all?

Ignoring the fact as to whether or not they actually were too long, and whether or not that caused any advantage; Oscar has himself lobbied for distinctions to be allowed: in the Olympics he was the only double amputee in the race; and that was only after the ban on bladed runners was overturned in 2008.

But can someone running with prosthetic legs legitimately compete against fully-legged competitors? Are the prosthetics an unfair advantage; or are they a hindrance?

To extrapolate Oscar's argument, should the Olympics have different categories of 100m depending on whether you are less that five foot five; five foot six to six foot; and over six foot? Once upon a time, height was considered a serious disadvantage - it took longer to get into a proper running style from the crouched position, and the wind resistance was increased, the body dynamics different. These days as running styles have developed, height is an advantage, with The Fastest Man on Earth - Usain Bolt - measuring up at six foot five; slightly faster than me and only ever-so-slightly taller.

The divisions in the Paralympics are already epic in their considerations. Within swimming there are 14 different categories; with S1-10 representing various physical impairments; S11-13 for visual impairments and S14 for intellectual disabilities. And in the majority of those categories there will be 50m, 100m 200m and 400m races in each of breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, free, medley and relay.

These are not strictly defined categories either - whereas one sportsman may be an S8 for one stroke, they may be an S9 for another. And the category placing can be the difference between a medal.

Indeed, Oscar is a T43 - double below-knee amputee - yet competes in the T44: single below the knee amputee.

That aside, should he have been allowed to run against the fully able-bodied? Did his blades give him an unfair advantage?

I am for inclusion. I think that people should be able to compete against anyone else. But it throws up the question of technology over and above disability.

With blades instead of legs did a mediocre Oscar perform exceptionally? Or was an otherwise world-beating Oscar hampered out of qualifying for the finals? Who is to know what advantage or not the blades provide unless the speeds of an able-bodied person are recorded before they then have to run in blades? They don't let wheelchair users race the 100m against runners; but then they are using an entirely different muscle group so although the title '100m' is the same, it is an entirely different sport.

But ditto technology generally. Would Ian Thorpe have been a gold medallist were it not for his now-banned full-body suit? Gone are the days of sprinters in garishly shiny, billowing shorts: these days the skin-tight, all-in-one seamless suit is omnipresent, and not just because of fashion.

Indeed, the reason that world records are being constantly smashed is as much down to technological development and improvement as much to individual speed. The last time the Olympics were in London in 1948 the track was cinder and starting blocks non-existent.

And it asks the question just how far can technology go? At what point does a chemically-balanced nutritional supplement become a performance-enhancing drug? We've already seen that the full-body swimsuit has since been banned; but that is just a dynamic technology - it isn't a biochemical manipulation. And they haven't banned shaving your body hair or smoothing yourself off in other ways.

Of course, it isn't just the Olympics where technology has had an impact. In football, goal-line technology has just been approved after a number of catastrophic decisions. But then prior to the introduction of the technology the playing field was always level anyway: all teams had to cope with human fallability and - given the law of averages and nothing incidious - as many rulings would go in the favour of the team as against.

And it isn't just sport either - look at photography. Digital manipulation is everywhere, but where is the line between simply cropping a photograph; and getting sacked from your job as a journalist for basically staging the whole thing. This is a subject for an entirely different post and is taking me far off on a tanget.

So, back to Oscar and I get his point - these are guys essentially competing with the same equipement; but there are rules as to how that equipement may be used (actually very technical rules) about the length of blades; and competitors compete within those rules. It is not a complaint about abuse of technology, but abuse of the rules.

Alan Oliveira is on record as saying that his blades were within the rules