Sprinter With Two Carbon-Fiber Feet Gets Olympics Thumbs-Up

Gizmodo.com
5/18/08

Oscar Pistorius is a sprinter with a difference: he runs on two artificial lower legs and feet fast enough that he may qualify for the Olympics. And that's something he can now attempt, given that the Court of Arbitration for Sport has just overturned his ban. The International Association of Athletics had ruled against him competing against able-bodied runners. All because of the specialized carbon-fiber Cheetah Flex-Foot prosthetic feet he uses, which represented an unfair mechanical advantage, maintained the IAAF. So the advanced artificial limbs, designed after the shape of a Cheetah's hind leg, were put to the test in the lab.

A new study led by MIT professor Hugh M. Herr revealed that the high-tech feet didn't give Oscar an advantage over able-bodied runners, conflicting with a January study at the German Sport University, which stated they were 30% more efficient than a human ankle. The German study also suggested that the springy feet meant that a user would need 25% less energy expenditure than an able-bodied runner to achieve the same sprinting speed: this is the study the IAAF based the ban on.

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