Shifting boundaries in sports technology and disability: equal rights or unfair advantage in the case of Oscar Pistorius?

Abstract

In Paralympic sports, athletes often depend on some form of equipment to enable activities of daily living, including the ability to participate in sport. Determining precisely when technology assists sports performance and when it transforms or distorts them presents a philosophical and ethical dilemma. We raise the conceptual problem of line-drawing between promoting rights of access to equipment that provide equal opportunity while proscribing ‘boosting’ technology where athletes with a disability are afforded an unfair advantage. We set out a multidisciplinary analysis regarding the Olympic eligibility for Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee world record holder, who runs with transtibial prostheses. We present scientific data comparing the prosthesis with an anatomical limb, and then contextualise the issue of shifting the boundaries of sports technology and disability to inform better policy-making in relation to the athlete–technology eligibility debate.

Keywords:

• Paralympics
• sports technology
• ethics
• Olympic eligibility