Pistorius to be 'chucked in the deep end '

The most important story in track and field right now is the struggle of Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee and the world's best Paralympic sprinter, to compete against the best able-bodied athletes in the sport, and the struggle of the rest of the athletic community to come to grips with what that means.

For now, the IAAF has cleared Pistorius to compete. That means, as Pistorius says in this article in the New York Times, "I’ve been chucked in the deep end with the best guys in the world."

Pistorius is scheduled to run a 400m in Rome on Friday in a "B" race, and then compete against defending Olympic champ Jeremy Wariner on Sunday in London's Norwich Union meet. Realistically, Pistorius has little chance to win -- his P.R. is only 46.34, after all, far off Wariner's sub-44 speed -- but the fact that he is competing at all is of enormous interest.

Many will feel he shouldn't be competing in an event with non-amputees. The fear is that the prosthetic devices he wears will give him an unfair advantage, and will open the door to lesser athletes competing above their natural level using artificial racing aids. This is not an entirely unreasonable fear. After all, one could imagine such devices imparting artificial assistance, enabling a runner or jumper to perform at an unrealistically high level.

But at least for now, the IAAF has concluded that the devices Pistorius uses, while they provide more recoil on impact than human joints and tendons, do not fully compensate for the mechanical inefficiencies involved in not having lower leg muscles. Ultimately, this issue may be about biomechanics.

One thing that might get lost in all the scrutiny of Pistorius as running machine is the pressure on the Pistorius the very human competitor. Imagine what it must feel like for him to be 'chucked in the deep end' with the world's attention focused so severely on his performance. Imagine the fear of running last, of stumbling at the start. Imagine the fear of simply not being good enough to reach the Olympic qualifying time. This is a human being we're talking about, not an automaton. The pressure on him will be enormous.

In trying to bridge the gap between the world of the Paralympics and the world of the Beijing Olympics, Pistorius is taking on a challenge much greater than just running 400m. Or perhaps, his challenge is EXACTLY that of just running 400m, and those of us who take our legs for granted never realized how great a challenge that truly is.

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By the way, if you don't think human locomotion is any big deal, check out this story from the BBC about a team of scientists trying to build a robot that simulates human walking:

Robot unravels mystery of walking