Pistorius ineligible for Beijing: IAAF

Track and field’s world governing body ruled on Monday that Oscar Pistorius...

Track and field’s world governing body ruled on Monday that Oscar Pistorius, a double-amputee sprinter from South Africa, is not be eligible to compete in Olympic qualifying events. The IAAF explained in a statement that, after an independent scientific study, it deemed Pistorius’s state-of-the-art carbon fiber prosthetics “should be considered as technical aids which give him an advantage over other athletes not using them.”

Pistorius’s agent, Peet Van Zyl, said that he and Pistorius were seeking legal advice in order to prepare an appeal. “We need to speak with the IAAF first and see what approaches we can follow there,” Van Zyl said in a telephone interview from South Africa. “The last resort will probably be the Court of Arbitration for Sport.”

Pistorius, 21, was born without fibulas and had both legs amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old. But in the four years since he started competing, he has set Paralympic world records in the 100, 200 and 400 meters and it was his dream to compete in the Olympics.

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The IAAF had originally cleared him to compete against able-bodied athletes last June, pending further scientific examination of his j-shaped blades, known as Cheetahs. So last November, the IAAF arranged for Pistorius to travel to Cologne, Germany, where he was tested for two days under the supervision of Peter Brueggemann, a professor at the German Sport University.

Brueggemann’s biomechanical and physiological analysis found that from a mechanical standpoint, the Cheetahs were more efficient than a human ankle and could in fact return energy in maximum speed sprinting. Specifically, he established that “the mechanical advantage of the blade in relation to the healthy ankle joint of an able-bodied athlete is higher than 30 per cent.” This means, according to the statement, that Pistorius was able to run at the same speed as the able-bodied sprinters with about “25 per cent less energy expenditure.”

Last week, the IAAF allowed Pistorius to circulate the findings from the Cologne tests to a number of other experts. Based on their opinions, Van Zyl believes that Pistorius still has a strong case. “Everyone that came back to us said that there were too many variables that weren’t considered and that more testing should be done,” he said.

But Van Zyl has not given up hope for Pistorius, who has yet to match the automatic qualifying time for the 2008 Olympics of 45.55 seconds in the 400 meters. “He still wants to be an Olympian, but it’s not looking like it’ll be Beijing,” he said.