About Oscar Pistorius, the disabled athlete who will run on the track at the London 2012 Olympics, many have been said. The world of sport has - inevitably - polarised, distinguishing itself into two groups: the apostles of technical-scientific rigor and those who, with a decidedly romantic vein, see the participation of the "blade runner" in the Olympic Games as a strong signal to society on the integration of the disabled.
But in sport, when the competition reaches the highest levels and attracts media attention, it is difficult to distinguish the truly Olympic spirit from the commercial purpose. It is a hackneyed controversy, that of the economic and television hypertrophy of contemporary sport, but in this case it cannot be ignored that Pistorius' participation takes on a "political" meaning that goes beyond the confines of the competition tout-court.
Outside of the public positions of the big names, conditioned by a "politically correct" vein that is perhaps a little stretched at times, many athletes consider Pistorius' pass to the Olympics to break the rules of the sport. For one simple reason: no one can ever really know whether those carbon prostheses constitute an advantage or a handicap for the South African athlete.
Since he has never run with natural legs, the counter-proof and the term of comparison are missing: how long did it get before the new hyper-technological levers were introduced? Therefore any scientific study on the matter, however detailed and sophisticated, cannot be verified empirically, violating the principle of falsification on which Karl Popper bases the validity of scientific laws.
On these bases, the decision of the South African Olympic Committee to convene Pistorius is easily questionable. Also because on this occasion the rules on the minimum times for qualifying were interpreted in a rather flexible way. It is also easy to imagine the disappointment of the athlete whose place Pistorius has taken over in the national team. Unfair competition?
However, there is also another perspective of analysis, more complex and comprehensive, less rigid and more aware. Pistorius never had legs, his feet and tibia were amputated at the age of eleven monthsdue to a congenital malformation. It is true that this athlete's participation in the Olympics displeases the penalty takers, but those who play sports know well how precious the body is for an athlete and how rich in perceptions every movement performed in the competitive gesture. Which is not an animalistic reflex, it is rather the result of careful study, weighting, reflection, repetition, neurological assimilation.
Comparing Pistorius to a pianist with artificial fingers does not seem like an exaggeration at all. Indeed, it is an effective way to imagine the effort, even intellectual, of someone who has to use his own body to transmit a brain impulse which, in the case of the twenty-five-year-old South African, does not find its natural termination: the feet and the trampled ground.
The impact with the track returns an impulse equal to and opposite to the force impressed by the stride, an impulse necessary for the athlete to perceive every slightest variation in the dynamic balance of his body, a variation at which the sprinter adjusts exactly like a pianist during the concert, when he has to adapt to the tempo dictated by the violins.
If it seems impossible to you to imagine Vladimir Horowitz performing Rachmaninoff's concerts for piano and orchestra with artificial fingers, remember that Pistorius in his field managed – with the necessary distinctions – to succeed in the enterprise. The problem, if anything, is media. And it is due to the incapacity of the institutional bodies to communicate the meaning of the choice to the public. If it is obvious that Pistorius's admission to the Olympic Games has a political significance, the South African Committee should have admitted it openly without shame or fear, with the dutiful support of the IOC. Instead, he limited himself to recalling that "each of the athletes passed difficult qualification criteria". A trivialization.
So the supranational sports authorities have missed a golden opportunity to remind the many spectators and sponsors of the Decoubertinian values that underpin the Olympic spirit. Sport has therefore been ashamed of conveying messages of political and social significance, in a phase in which in professionalism, due to doping and the invasion of the field of business, there is very little that is clear and genuine.
The difficulties that disabled people have to face on a daily basis are often forgotten, the "equalization" to the "able-bodied" is often fictitious. In Italy, they have even assumed the hypocritical and false denomination of "differently abled", as if being disabled is something to be ashamed of and to hide - which perhaps even facilitates the cutting of social benefits - instead of a objective disadvantage against the company that runs at full capacity.
Of course, the disabled will cheer for Pistorius, their standard bearer despite the refusal to officially attribute to him the burden and pride of representing a weak social group in need of protection. Pistorius champion of the disabled, but not too much: someone could get annoyed.
Yet, sport has more than once expressed values that transcend mere competition on the field, such as on the occasion of the match between the Cuban national baseball team and the professional team of Baltimore, in 1999. Not to forget the legendary duels between the US basketball dream team and the Soviet national team, during the dark years.
But times have changed and sports have lost the ability to convey more complex messages. The "institutional" investiture of Pistorius, as representative of the disadvantaged in the Olympus of super-athletes, would have been a nice redemption. For now, it seems like a missed opportunity.
