The debate about Paralympic athletes competing against able-bodied athletes has raged since before Oscar Pistorius took to the track on his Flex-Foot Cheetah prosthetic leg at the London Olympics in 2012. Some biomechanists suggest that prosthetic limbs give Paralympians an unfair advantage, while others argued that prostheses restrict athletes as they power away from the blocks. `When I saw Paralympians using these devices I said, "I really want to understand how these prostheses function during sprinting"`, recalls Paolo Taboga, from the University of Colorado, USA. All of the previous studies had investigated sprinters running straight, however, 200 m and 400 m competitions are run on curves. `We wanted to see what happens for these athletes with unilateral [one-sided] amputations when they run on a curve`, explains Taboga, who teamed up with Rodger Kram and Alena Grabowski to learn more about the effects of prostheses on cornering.
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