Prior Thread 1Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee sprinter who was barred from able-bodied competition in January, will be allowed to pursue his dream of qualifying for the Olympic Games after an unexpected decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. The Court, an international panel which has final say over legal matters in sport, overturned the International Association of Athletics Federations’ ban, ruling in effect that Pistorius’ carbon fiber prosthetic blades do not give him an unfair advantage.
The court, an international panel that is the final arbiter on legal disputes in sports, came to a decision after hearing expert testimony from Pistorius’s camp and the I.A.A.F., track and field’s governing body, on April 29 and 30 in Lausanne, Switzerland. It published its opinion in a statement at 9 a.m., Eastern time.The I.A.A.F. had declared Pistorius ineligible for able-bodied competition in January despite originally clearing him to compete last spring, pending further investigation. Pistorius will be allowed to resume his efforts immediately.
That investigation came last November when the I.A.A.F. sponsored three days of testing on Pistorius, who gave his consent, in Cologne, Germany, under the supervision of Peter Brüggemann, a professor at the German Sport University.
Brüggemann found that the prosthetics, known as Cheetahs, were more efficient than a human ankle. He also found that they could return energy in maximum speed sprinting and that Pistorius was able to keep up with a few able-bodied sprinters while expending about 25 percent less energy. Based on Brüggemann’s report, the I.A.A.F. decided that Pistorius would not be allowed to compete.
Pistorius’s lawyers, however, argued that the results of the study did not provide enough evidence to make a decision and lodged an appeal in February.
Jeffrey Kessler, an attorney in the New York-based law firm Dewey & Leboeuf, who agreed to take the case on a pro bono basis, led Pistorius’s defense. Calling on the testimony of two experts of biomechanics, he attempted to prove that Brüggemann’s tests only took a very small portion of the prosthetics’ total effect into account, he said in a telephone interview last week.
“We won because Dr. Brüggemann was asked to do the wrong job,” Kessler added in a telephone interview Friday morning. “He was never asked to consider the issue of Oscar’s overall net advantage or disadvantage and they found that that was the required test.”
Furthermore, Kessler explained that the Court found that Brüggemann’s scientific evidence did not show any advantage for Pistorius and that “the I.A.A.F. had not at all follow proper procedures in conducting any of its review. Many of its results were in many respects pre-ordained.”
Pistorius, a South African, was born without the fibula in his lower legs and with defects in his feet. His legs were amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old. He has set Paralympic world records in the 100, 200, and 400 meters, but will remain in Paralympic competition.
Pistorius had flirted with able-bodied competition last spring running in a ‘B’ race at the Golden Gala meet in Rome and then at a Grand Prix meet in Sheffield, England. Even so, Pistorius had not met the Olympics’ automatic qualifying standard of 45.55 seconds in the 400 meters. But he likely will earn an invitation onto the South African 4x400 meter relay team which would take a squad of six sprinters to Beijing.
What the decision means for other disabled athletes hoping to compete in the Olympics is that they will be allowed to compete with able-bodied athletes unless the I.A.A.F. can provide indubitable scientific evidence to the contrary. In the past, I.A.A.F. spokesman Nick Davies has insisted that these matters can only be treated on a case by case basis with the burden of proof on the athletes to show that the prosthetics do not provide an unfair advantage.
“Unless there is adequate evidence to support that determination,” Kessler said. “Then the disabled should be allowed to compete.”
Prior Thread 2