Paralympic Games: Blade-runner row heats up with SA complaint

By MARTYN MCLAUGHLIN
Published on 06/09/2012 01:35

THE row sparked by Oscar Pistorius over the use of running blades at the London Paralympics escalated yesterday after South Africa lodged an official complaint that athletes are switching blades.

The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has received a letter alleging that athletes had changed the length of their blades, breaking competition rules. While staff have spoken to coaches in the athletes’ village, they have found no evidence to back the South African claims.

Pistorius sparked controversy with comments he made after losing out on gold in the 200m race, alleging Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira’s use of longer blades gave him an unfair advantage.

The IPC’s Craig Spence said yesterday: “When we put that allegation to the coaches there was a look of shock, because running on different size prostheses or swapping them for races is extremely difficult to do for an athlete. There is no evidence that any athlete competed on different size running blades.

“Unless the South Africans can come to us with evidence that proves otherwise, it’s something we won’t continue investigating.”

He said blades were measured before the heats and the final, and that running on different sizes would mean adapting to a different running technique.