‘Ten-second advantage’ for Pistorius

A SOUTH African sports scientist has described the decision to allow Oscar Pistorius to compete at this month’s World Athletics Championships as a ‘farce’ and has claimed the sprinter’s prosthetic limbs give him a ten-second advantage.

The four-time Paralympic gold medallist has been selected to race against able-bodied runners in a global championships for the first time in Daegu after setting a 400 metres personal best of 45.07 seconds.

Pistorius was initially banned by the IAAF after it was ruled his carbon-fibre blades gave him an advantage but that decision was overturned ahead of the 2008 Olympics, which the 24-year-old would have been eligible for had he run the qualifying time.

But Dr Ross Tucker, a senior lecturer with the University of Cape Town’s Exercise Science and Sports Medicine Department, believes the decision was flawed. He told insidethegames.biz: “I don’t think he should be running. Two of his own scientists who did the testing to clear him published a paper saying that he had a ten-second advantage. I don’t wish to watch Formula One where the engineers can tinker with equipment to find half a second, and that seems to me to be a possibility in this instance.”