Para-Athletes With Left-Leg-Amputees Are At A Disadvantage

Nusrat Jahan
Paralympic sprinters with left-leg prostheses should sit down and pray for an outer lane in the 200-400 meter races that is going to take place in Rio on August. Why? Because Paolo Taboga, a biomechanics specialist at the University of Colorado in Boulder, recorded 17 sprinters, right or left leg amputees and non-amputees alike, sprinting as fast as they can on straight, clockwise, and anticlockwise tracks. It turned out that most of the athletes ran slower about the curves than in the straight portions, with both type of sprinters having more contact with the ground with their inside leg when compared with their outside leg. Since majority of the track competitions are run in an anticlockwise direction, left-leg-amputees are at a disadvantage. That is on the grounds that the most extreme running rate of Para-competitors with single prostheses is sufficiently impeded on tighter bends to influence the medal table.
Now the question is, how can left-leg-amputees get a fair game? “You need to direct forces in the direction you want to accelerate, towards the curve on a track.” Taboga says.