Grinding in Motion I
His name is Oscar Pistorius but some call him “Blade Runner”. The South African double-amputee can run 400 meters in 46.56 seconds, making him the world record holder for disabled competition and putting him well in range of Olympic Gold.
Unless of course the IAAF decides that his Ossur Cheetah prosthetic legs give him an unfair advantage, that is. While it is up in the air currently as to whether his carbon fibre transtibial artificial limbs do in fact constitute an advantage over his organically-equipped competitors, the fact that there is even an argument about it is of note. That and, well, obviously this technology is improving as we speak, and if it’s a question of how much energy is lost by his artificial legs in comparison to organic legs today, that’s not going to be a question at all six months to one year from now.
So, while Oscar had a birth condition that resulted in his double-amputation let me see a show of hands — if you could run farther and faster in carbon-wound legs that don’t suffer from lactic acid build-up and muscle fatigue but have little sensory feedback — who here would take the plunge?
Nice one Kevin!
That grinder-girl with the double artificial legs at the end of DoktorSleepless #4 brought this guy to mind for me.
Great profile of him in Wired
If running was truly my passion… Or if I had to do a lot of running away from things… or if I was the test subject in Portal… yes. In a heartbeat.
But my legs feel pretty sexy and I don’t think carbon fiber feels the same in fresh flannel sheets, so no, probably not. Sense over sensibility, sometimes.
I wondered when one of us was going to put this one up. I also caught the grinder-girls’ legs in issue #4 and immediately thought of him.
And to answer your question, as a former runner, I wouldn’t take the plunge. Until they can link up the sensory input to fool my brain that my artifical legs are real, nothing will take the place for flesh & blood for me.
He did run against some able-bodied types in a meet not that long ago. I believe that he came last, if not last then he didn’t place in the top three.
And wouldn’t it be a pain to unscrew your legs from the ‘walking’ legs to the ‘running’ legs every time you had to run for the bus?
Yeah, he’s run against non-disabled a few times, I think the one time you’re thinking of, not only did he come in last, but he ended up retroactively disqualified for not staying within boundaries. It was raining and apparently the Cheetahs he was using had no traction in the rain.
Ha! I was just watching the Cremaster movies (in bits and pieces) and all this talk reminded me of the lovely cheetah girl/model/para olympian/double amputee…
Who looks like this in the film http://grammarpolice.net/archives/images/mullins.jpg
Oh, I’d forgotten about her.
And there will be a follow up to this one, tonight.
Kevin – yep, you are absolutely right, that’s the one I’m thinking of.
I don’t really follow athletics.
Me neither, I just follow prosthetics.
[...] Kevin gave us the story about Oscar Pistorius aka “Blade Runner”. [...]
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[...] could be a huge leap, not just in prosthetics, (imagine Oscar Pistorius on legs that are more energy efficient than human baseline) but in alternative energy sources as [...]
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