My friend Kenny Fries, author of The History of My Shoes, among other wonderful books, has recently published an op-ed piece in The Washington Post. The editorial, entitled "Running Outside the Lines" is about Oscar Pistorius, the sprinter from South Africa who runs on two prosthetic legs. He refers to himself as "the fastest man on no legs" and as you may already know, he has successfully petitioned the Czars of the running world to compete alongside able-bodied runners. Whether Oscar Pistorius will be allowed to continue competing against "the normates" remains to be seen and the debate over the pros and cons of engaging in sports with the aid of prosthetics is raging. Kenny Fries brings his unique perspective to this story: he is a disabled walker and a student of the history of physical difference. Ultimately the issues involved are more philosophical than utilitarian: baseball players use ever bigger gloves, but in the early days they wore no gloves at all. The Boston Celtics wear sneakers that grow larger and more technologically advanced with every season. In the end, one has to ask, what’s a prosthesis? Who in the world of sports wants to be normal? No one wants to be normal. Athletes get paid to be post-normative, or supra-normal. Many of them will cheat and use illegal steroids to achieve a competitive and super-natural edge over their competitors. As technology changes so does the nature of human sport. Heck, even the sports change. No one ever thought about snowboarding when I was a kid. Now its an Olympic event.
I believe that competitive sports will be more interesting when we abandon the cult of the perfect body and imagine new paradigms of competition. If the able-bodied runners believe that Oscar Pistorius has an unfair advantage with his high tech prosthetic legs, then they could wear stiff splints and learn to run the way he does. Why not? Personally, I know some darned good blind golfers. Maybe everyone on the PGA should wear occluders that limit eyesight. I think this would make golf much more interesting.
SK
More….
Kenny Fries on Oscar Pistorius at Disability Studies, Temple U
Oscar Pistorius – Lucky Or Unlucky? at The King SPEAKS
Oscar Pistorius – Science and Engineering vs Training. The first and only evaluation of ALL the evidence at The Science of Sport
Oscar Pistorius: Able or Disabled? at Run Bulldog Run
Planet of the Blind 
Thank you for linking to my article.
But I have to say that I do not agree with you. The problem with saying that the athletes take drugs to make themselves better is that the drugs are illegal, and the ones that are legal (if any) are available to all.
On the other hand, all the athletes running cannot have carbon fibered light wait legs for themselves and have no lactic acid build up.
It’s about giving everybody the same opportunity and to see who exceeds best, not to give someone an unfair advantage and see who does best.
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