August 8 2016 - The Paralympics: Inspiration for all amputees.

The Paralympics are a wonderful test ground for new prosthetic developments.
Prosthetics are getting good enough to challenge able bodied people at most sports, and  better than able bodied people at some sports. (If a person can wear a socket without stump pain.)

Many traditional sports (skiing, archery) use mechanical devices. This man/machine combination is better than man alone. How about a prosthetic arm and hand for archery, or rifle shooting. No unsteadiness, no shaking, no heartbeat, and no fatigue.

The rules in the Paralympics say a high jumper must leave the ground with a "foot". You cannot leave the ground with a prosthesis. That event is called pole vaulting.
Most of the single leg, high jumpers, hop up to the bar and do a forward somersault over the bar.

If the residual stump is long enough, then some will use a prosthetic leg and run up to the bar like a normal high jumper. But then they must carry the dead weight of the prosthesis over the bar with them.

I tried to get better at hopping. Hopping makes my stump hurt. Maybe from the bouncing of the blood in the stump.

In the Paralympics, they have a classification for "Single leg amputee above the knee". T42/ F42.
The T stands for track, and F stands for field.

Some of the other classifications are:
11–13 – Visual impairment. Compete with a sighted guide.
20 – Intellectual disability
31–38 – Cerebral palsy
41–46 – Amputation, and others (including athletes with dwarfism)
51–58 – Wheelchair

The ones that are most relevant to me are:
T42 - single and double above knee
T43 - double below knee
T44 - single below knee amputation
T45 - double arm amputation
T46 - single above elbow amputation

The times for T43 (double below knee) running events are less than the times for T44 (single below knee) events. The symmetry of having both legs amputated gives a distinct advantage over the single leg amputee. Recently this has been evident in the T42 (above knee) class as well. There is no separate class for double above knee amputations, so single, and double above knee amputees run in the same class.

The Gold Medal at the 2012 Paralympics in the 400 Meter T42 run, was won by a double above knee amputee. This guy ran with no knees in the prosthesis. That makes for a funny looking run, but the weight savings means he has a very quick leg swing.

It also means that if you are a serious, single legged T42 runner, you should have your other leg amputated in order to remain competitive.

Creating a fair Paralympic classification system, is almost an impossible task. The simple extension of the length of the leg shaft between the knee and ankle can give a distinct and unfair advantage to a runner. How do you accurately determine how tall a person would have been, if he had been born with legs instead of without legs?

Oscar Pistorious was born with deformed lower legs that were amputated when he was a child. He runs with carbon fiber feet in the T43 (double below knee) class.

  If he simply extended the length of his legs, he could easily out run any "able bodied" Olympic Gold Medalist.

Prosthesis keep getting better and better. Soon the "disabled" person will be the healthy, whole person.

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