Blade Runner: Oscar Pistorius will be the star of the Paralympics (Photo: REUTERS)
Oscar Pistorius on the main stage. Seven years of effort. Twenty-four years with no shins and feet. A lifetime’s ambition to compete against the fastest men on earth at 400m. At the IAAF World Championships, ‘Blade Runner’ went out at the semi-final stage today. In exactly one year’s time, there will be talk of the young South African again at the Paralympics in London, when the flame is lit. He will be centre stage. What an advert he has been this week for the Paralympics…while a debate has raged around him.
There are those who say – nay, insist – he has an advantage. There are those who suggest his competing at both Olympics and Paralympics blur the edges between the two sporting festivals and create illogical conundrums for Paralympic organisers.
Even single-amputees competing against Pistorius whisper that he has an advantage. Yet start to pick apart the Paralympic Games, and take a good, hard look at the classification system, and holes appear everywhere. In many ways, it has its advantages for those at the top and bottom end of the classification bands put in place and then decided by IPC classifiers.
In Beijing, 1 in 4 of the competitors in athletics were re-classified by IPC officials into higher or lower (more able or less able physical groupings). In short, every country was looking for the advantages they can get.
In Paralympic terms, muscle groups in different parts of the body are balanced out. It is an inexact science. Ellie Simmonds, the British swimmer who was born with dwarfism, competes against other athletes who have minimal use of two legs. Look deeply enough, and the Paralympic classifying system is a can of worms.
I’ve been one of the strongest supporters of Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson for five Paralympic Games. The Baroness, 11 gold medals to the good as a wheelchair sprinter, is THE stand-out British athlete of all-time. It was with some surprise to me that her views are that should Pistorius compete in the 400m at the Olympics, Paralympic officials should consider precluding him from that event at the Paralympic Games.
Baroness Grey-Thompson was quoted on a BBC website this week as saying that she does not have a problem with Pistorius competing at the World Championships or Olympic Games. She believes, however, that it could turn the 400m Paralympics event into a B final. It is an interesting argument. “It is blurring the edges, and maybe it is time either before London, or between London, for the IPC to take a look at this situation, as more athletes begin to compete in both,” she told me earlier today.
Two things: knowing Baroness Grey-Thompson as I do, my belief is that she is so competitive, had she been in the same position, she would have done the same as Pistorius (she concurred on that). Secondly, never has one athlete done as much to bring so much attention to the Paralympic Games as the South African, and he has never veered from the view that it is the Paralympic Games which put him on the map.
Even Sir Philip Craven, President of the International Paralympic Committee, is fully supportive of Pistorius’s ambition and desire to compete at both the Olympic and Paralympic Games in London. Pistorius has carried himself with dignity in Daegu, and has had the world watching. The Paralympic Games has a great ambassador in the sprinter, who will be in Trafalgar Square next week when the tickets go on sale for the second sporting festival of next summer.
There are others who are on the cusp of crossing over into both, or have already done so. Sarah Storey, born without a hand, may cycle for GB next summer in both Olympic and Paralympic Games. However, she would compete in different events at the two Games. Natalie Du Toit, the South African swimmer, a single-leg amputee, competed in the open water swimming event at the Olympics in Beijing, before winning a clutch of gold medals a few weeks later at the Water Cube in the Paralympics. Again, different events.
It could be argued that she has less weight to carry through the water, yet she will most likely compete in both Games. Natalia Partyka, a table-tennis player from Poland, born without a hand, competed in both Games in Beijing.
They are stand-outs. They can, because they are good enough. And, significantly, because they can cross over. Some athletes cannot cross over. Wheelchair events are not included in the Olympic Games, but have been included as demonstration events at World Championships and Olympics. Indeed, Baroness Grey-Thompson competed in some of them.
The Paralympic Games are one year away. Between now and then, there are many things to debate, many of them ideological. The British public will need educating on many of the intricacies of Paralympic sport, some of which are complex. Pistorius will be at the heart of that…but we will all emerge enriched. Or maybe just confused.
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