Should Oscar Pistorius be Allowed to Compete at the Olympic Games?

<p>On the 4th of August 2012 South African runner Oscar Pistorius became the first athlete to compete at the Olympic Games while running on prosthetic limbs. Pistorius is a double below the knee amputee who runs on carbon J-shaped fibre blades. He represents a fusion of humanity and technology that will become an increasingly pressing issue for the sporting arena in the coming years. In this essay I use Pistorius as a case study to investigate how decisions regarding the use of enhancement technologies in sport should be made. I argue that the key characteristic that should be assessed is whether Pistorius' prosthetic legs mean that he is competing in a different sport to able-bodied athletes when he runs. I contend that the best method for deciding whether or not Pistorius is competing in the same sport as able-bodied athletes is to adopt a balance of excellences view of sport (Devine, 2010). I use this model to show that the excellence of exploiting technical aids is far more important for Pistorius than it is for his able-bodied counterparts. From this I conclude that what Pistorius does when he runs is not comparable to able-bodied runners. Thus he should not be allowed to compete against able-bodied athletes at the Olympic Games.</p>