Paralympic athletes who harm themselves to perform better
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
Does anyone have any insight into how they match competitors to ensure a level playing field? Would someone with a normal heart rate increase ever be matched against someone with a spinal injury preventing normal heart rate increase, which would basically require this kind of pain training?
Although it is an inspiring story to see athletes at a disadvantage even considering their competition in the paralympics still out there training hard, focusing on their personal goal, and succeeding where their fate has previously told them they cannot.
So although it may seem orderly to you in the abstract, it's pointless and arbitrary to organize the paralympics based on type of injury if you're simultaneously allowing a much greater range of abilities to compete in the olympics.
If you really care that much about controlling for physical ability, you need to sort people based on some kind of meaningful sport-specific measure which more reliably segregates people's capabilities regardless of age, gender, injury, etc. But injury type (and for that matter gender and age) are extraordinarily poor proxies which in practice often prevent people from competing against their physical peers.
There are lots of categories. It's changed slightly now, but when I raced there was C1 - C5 for cyclists, T1 - T3 for tricyclists and H1 - H4 for hand cyclists. So that's 12 categories for each men and women in cycling. I needed to be evaluated twice by physiotherapists for strength, range of motion, etc. Then I was placed in a category. Obviously you want to be put in the lowest possible category for your disability. Lots of shady stuff goes on, faking additional disability etc. You can lodge a protest against other athletes if you think they are in the wrong category.
As I understand it now, they've reduced the number of medals given out, so instead of each category having a medal, each category has a standard speed, and the athlete that beats the standard by the greatest percentage wins. Other sports still have medals for each category but cycling went away from it due to not enough athletes per category. Swimming probably has the most athletes.
Here is the classification guide: http://www.handbiken.at/Regeln/Paracycling%20Classification....
For example, my category C5 is:
Neurological Fair to normal - Major and minor neurological signs - Minimally affected diplegic with spasticity grade 1 or 1+ - Truly ambulant hemiplegic with spasticity grade 1 or 1+ - Monoplegic and minimal athetoids - Possible loss of function by uncoordinated hands or one leg
Co-ordination Fair to normal - Very slight signs of inco-ordination on the bike (not normal function)
Abilities - Fair to normal (0-2 points): mostly functional but not normal, major and minor signs
Amputation, Impairment as described in 2b 2 “fair to normal” - Single amputation AE, with or without prosthesis, no functional grip (54 points) - Single amputation BE with the use of a prosthesis
Minimal disability: Amputation of all fingers and thumb (through MCP) or amputation of more than half foot (forefoot). In the case of a single AE-, BE- amputation or a single upper limb dysmelia, the minimal impairment is met if all fingers and the thumb of one hand is missing through the MCP joint or other impairments who are equivalents, without a functional grip. As a proof of the loss of functional grip, the affected athlete will not be able to operat
Better competition generally raises your game and so I've found that my best games have more often than not been against better teams who usually get the higher score.
Perhaps [some] paralympians share a similar view of sporting achievement?
That's awesome. Original?
The B1's compete with blackout materials in their goggles to ensure that they really are B1's.
There's the usual issues that certain national adaptive sports federations are incredibly well funded, like Spain's, which is/was fed by the national lottery.
Can anyone explain why a spinal cord injury would render a human unable to raise their blood pressure through strenuous physical exercise? It doesn't seem to make sense.
They are in a really bad shape, but still will do things like that to win. Not sure what to think of it.
What I read was an article about people hacking their bodies to get to levels of performance they wouldn't otherwise be capable of. In this case the athletes' bodies are already damaged, typically in ways that would stop the rest of us in our tracks.
My opinion is contrarian and I don't expect to see much agreement here or elsewhere. But then, I've also argued that there should be an "unlimited" category in sports like cycling where the athlete with the best drug lab wins.
You mean the game where you get to wear one million paddings that makes even skinniest person look buffed up? I would have gone with Rugby as a better example of being brutal. However, you argument still doesn't hold because in these cases you are not self inflicting a damage on yourself. Sure you are more likely to get hurt during the game and have a higher chance of causing a permanent damage but there is a big difference between doing that to yourself just to win a game and being a part of an accident. Whatever happened to the term Sportsmanship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportsmanship ?
>What I read was an article about people hacking their bodies to get to levels of performance they wouldn't otherwise be capable of.
That argument would have a better merit if they were to compete against the "normal" athletes. However they are not, they are competing against people who has similar disabilities and limitations like them. So its will be a fair game if they don't resort to such performance enhancing methods.
Prior to the useful other reply, I thought that being a quadriplegic implied you couldn't move your arms or legs.
But what kind of victory is it?
I used to wrestle competitively, and I still believe that it's the most underrated sport, partly for the following reason:
Wrestling is undeniably a team sport - matches are scored for the entire team, and the support and camaraderie between teammates is not an empty gesture; I can't imagine a successful team that lacks this. But on the other hand, when you and your opponent are on the mat for your six minutes, you're the only one fighting for your team - all the pressure is on you and you alone.
Most importantly, this makes victories personal. You can win your match even if the team loses, and vice versa. You can lose your match and still help the team win (by keeping the margin of victory low, which impacts the score). You can have a personal triumph, and your teammates will share in that, regardless of the outcome of the team's score.
I know less about the Paralympics than the Special Olympics (and yes, I know they're different), but to me, both always stood out to me as wonderful reminders of the true importance of sportsmanship - not athleticism, but sportsmanship. Part of that is about treating your opponent with respect, which is how we usually hear the word, but part of it is about treating yourself with respect. A dishonorable victory may help your team/country, but for you personally, it's a defeat. On the other hand, being able to overcome a personal struggle, even if you don't "win" the match, qualifies as a victory in my book, and as a spectator, I like being able to celebrate that with the athlete.
Knowing that somebody is artificially harming their body in order to boost some artificial metric (like their race time), or even to gain an edge over their opponent - that's not a good way to treat yourself as an athlete. But that robs me of my vicarious joy as well. And that's a horrible way to treat your teammate.
Hey Otto, I've got news for you. Wrestling is not a team sport. When you're out there against a guy who is faster and stronger than you, there isn't a whole hell of a lot your team can do for you."[1]
> I know less about the Paralympics than the Special Olympics (and yes, I know they're different), but to me, both always stood out to me as wonderful reminders of the true importance of sportsmanship - not athleticism, but sportsmanship.
No doubt, good sportsmanship is an admirable quality. But is it really reasonable to expect the Paralympics or Special Olympics to be any more of an exemplar of that, than any other athletic competition? At the end of the day, the participants are still people... with ego, vanity, jealousy and whole gamut of human emotions.
And while temporary, it is most certainly dangerous. And they most definitely gain an advantage.
Which comes back to, it's all relative. Acceptable behavior is not fixed. What is sportsmanlike is fluid, and changes between sports, and over time, and even geographically, and carries a great due of subtlety.
For example, in basketball, intentional fouling is often a sound decision. North American Ultimate Frisbee is the most unsportsmenlike thing in the world according to the rest of the world. Major league baseball pitchers routinely (as in always) break the rules on how long they wait between pitches (and the batters are just happy to oblige). The whole thing is a complicated furball.