Paralympians Outperforming Olympians: An Increasing Challenge for Olympism and the Paralympic and Olympic Movement

Abstract

Non-therapeutic performance enhancement in sport is a contentious issue for some time but the issue of therapeutic enhancements has only recently entered the sport vernacular. The purpose of therapeutic assistive devices so far is widely seen as lifting as impaired perceived people back to species-typical norms. However, ‘therapeutic’ body devices developed to mimic species-typical body structures and expected body functioning, as a side effect, increasingly allow the wearer to outperform the species-typical body in various functions. Unsurprisingly, then, this brings the prospect of people labelled as impaired outperforming the so called non-impaired person in general and the paralympic athlete outperforming Olympic athletes. The ‘cheetah’ prosthetic legs worn by the South African Paralympic amputee Oscar Pistorius are one example of a ‘therapeutic’ device that might in the future outperform the species-typical body. Although it does not yet, it has already been labelled as a techno doping device. Others that already outperform are wheelchairs; however, they are rather invisible in the dispute around therapeutic enhancements and sport. This essay highlights various issues attached to this paradigm shift of the ability relationship between disabled and so called non-disabled people, Paralympic and Olympic athletes and what this might mean for Olympism and the Paralympic and Olympic Games.