The Blade Runner complaining about...............

Perhaps, but it looks as if they are gong to address the query.

Here is a good technical analysis of the whole question of length of blades blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-why-pistoriuss-complaint-is-a-tall-story/11347. It's a pity that Oscar Pistorius raised his query immediately on finising the race, but it's good that he did raise it generally for the sake of better understanding for us the spectators. Nothing can detract from the enormous achievements and the awe I feel for the paralympic competitors overall.

I watched the replay and I'm pretty sure that the younger man's leg speed was faster at the end of the race than Pistorius', which as nothing to do with the length of the blades.
The French were complaining that the British racing wheelchairs were more technological advanced than theirs. Oh diddums! Remember their wingeing about the cyclists' wheels just a few weeks ago and it turned out they were made in France?

Next they'll be complaining that our horses are more advanced than theirs.

Oscar Pistorius and all the other paralympians who compete using technology are trailblazers and will attract controversy as it is an emerging and evolving issue. There have been complaints about the length of blades before, at previous Olympics, by other athletes, and the rules were amended. But of course it may well be that he lost the race because Alan Oliviera was simply faster on that occasion.

Are we still fighting the Hundred Years' War?

Yes.

Zut alors!

Sorry I did not see this thread when I started a new one under sport! I feel very sorry for Alan Oliviera and thought it poor sportsmanship of Pistorius to make a song and dance at the point he lost! If he had got gold I bet he would not have mentioned blades at all at that point!! He will have known before he ran what he was up against. I know he has complained previously but all blades are within the required range.
Pistorius behaved badly IMO.

Yes he did behave badly and he apologised. Oliviera's blades make him taller than what he would be if had legs? That doesn't seem right somehow. So maybe the required range for blades as it stands needs re-evaluating, that's the point. It's an evolving science.

Pistorius could have had the same blades as the man who won but he chose not to. So sounds like a bad loser now he's complaining.

Will there come a time when a medal will really have to go to the technical designer as well as the athlete?

I always think that about car / motor bike racing JO4 When you are reliant on a machine or technical equipment that does count for so much.. remember the all in one swimsuit debate and when lightweight tennis racquets were first used!

Well, motor racing does have the constructor's championship which runs alongside the drivers one. Much as I applaud the Paralympics and am overwhelmed by the bravery of the competitors, there is that slight niggle when I watch it that it isn't quite a level playing field.

crimson it isn't for the Olympics either! The countries that invest in sports mean their competitors have better chances to win. I can still see the image of the guy from the Cook Islands in his kayak.... struggling to get to the finish in the heats at Eton Dorney ... bet he had not had the quality of training that the winners had.... it was ever thus!

True; I think Ian Thorpe pointed out that Australia did so much better when they staged the Games because they ploughed so much money into it at the time..as did we this time round.

On the subject of the Olympics, they've just played in full on Radio 6 the music they use for the Paralympics and it's got me wondering who picks out the music for these things; this is not a song that I would listen to and think, wow, this is perfect for a sports event...but it is. In full, I don't like it, but when it comes on the telly I love it.

www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/sep/05/paralympics-running-blades-pistorius Other paralympians are coming forward in support of Oscar Pistorius: ^Afterwards Jerome Singleton, the American who beat Pistorius in the 100m at last year's world championships, said he and other single leg amputees shared concerns over the way the maximum allowable height of double amputees was calculated.

April Holmes, the US Paralympic gold medallist who holds the world record in the 100m, 200m and 400m in the T44 class for single leg amputees, also weighed into the row in support of Pistorius.

"It takes a great leader to stand up and tell somebody that they do not think what is happening is correct. We and our governing bodies have been in constant discussion with the IPC trying to make sure that the sport moves forward. We want to be accepted for our athletic ability and not our prosthetic devices," said Holmes.

"We all train hard. At the end of the day, we all understand there is a rule issue. So we are truly thankful that the IPC has agreed to sit down and discuss it. We welcome that scientists are looking at what is an appropriate height for athletes with missing legs and what are the appropriate things to make the playing field level."

Singleton said that a group of single leg amputees, who fear that double leg amputees are gaining an unfair advantage by switching between longer blades for the 200m and shorter blades for the 100m, had brought the issue to the attention of the IPC in March.^

Oops the italics didn't work.

Surely they should only have the blades which make them the height they were before amputation. I assume single amputees don't have a height variation. Were any of them good at sport ie putative Olympiads before amputation?

Still think it was unfair for Oliviera..he won within the rules and some of the congratulatory moments were taken away from him because of Pistorius's outburst. Oliviera had trained hard too. If the current rules make it unfair then they need changing but Pistorius knew them when he entered.