Artifical Limbs and Sports

What’s A Fair Race?

Your heart is beating with the rhythm of the screaming fans; the force of the wind is blowing through your sweaty body, constantly inhaling in and out trying to grasp every breath. You look ahead as you are close to approaching the finish line, while your arms and legs are pacing back and forth trying to gain momentum and acceleration you need to finish the race. However, what if you were disabled and had to have an artificial limb or what is known as prosthesis? Would people consider it a fair race? Today’s technology allows people with disabilities to perform everyday tasks that they wouldn’t be able to do. But should technology be permitted in professional sports if steroids or other drugs aren’t?   A professional athlete with a disability that requires them to have an artificial limb gives them an unfair advantage to the other athletes.

Could you imagine how much technology has change from hundred years ago to now? How researchers are working with the technology and discoveries that are being made to improve everyday life? For instance, the simple invention of the wooden leg peg by Ambroise Pare And Dubois L. Parmelee had been used to replace legs so that people would have the chance to walk again but it limited the flexibility of the individual (Schlager, 14). Countless different inventions of prostheses were made but it wasn’t until 1898, when muscle contractions would be able to control prostheses with Dr. Vanghetti’s invention (Bellis, par.2). Throughout time and even nowadays, various inventors are working to advance prosthesis.

Visualize yourself lining up at the starting line; positioning your foot on the starting block and your hands on the ground, getting ready to get the speed you need for the race. What if the runner besides you had an artificial leg? Would you consider that you were racing against someone who had an unfair advantage? Dr. Robert Galley from the University of Miami studied that when running with an...