As Pistorius, a double amputee who races on carbon fibre prosthetics known as Cheetahs, prepares to race at the World Athletics Championships which start in Daegu later this month, Tucker has offered insidethegames new background to the scientific debate that took place in 2008, when the CAS discounted evidence suggesting that the South African gained an unfair advantage from the technology available to him in the light of a subsequent scientific study.

"I don't think he should be running," Tucker, a senior lecturer with the University of Cape Town's Exercise Science and Sports Medicine Department, told insidethegames.

"I think he gets an enormous advantage, and two of his own scientists who did the testing to clear him recently published a paper saying that he had a 10-second advantage.

"The media never picked up on this, but the short version is that the Court of Arbitration decision that cleared him was a complete farce, scientifically, as was the testing that got him off.

"Only a year later, when the scientists had a split, did the 'truth' emerge."

Tuker added: "I don't wish to watch Formula One where the engineers can tinker with equipment to find half a second, and that seems to me to be a possibility in this instance.

"Just to be clear, the companies that make these blades are innovating and developing prototypes all the time, and they're prototypes that have a potential performance advantage."


Based on tests performed by German professor Gert-Peter Brueggemann, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) banned Pistorius from competing against able-bodied athletes in January 2008.

The decision was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in May, based on evidence supplied by a group of biomechanics experts including Peter Weyand of Rice University.

But Tucker, a qualified middle-distance coach who works with the Springbok sevens team as well as two Olympic kayakers, Shaun Rubenstein and Mike Arthur, maintains that, while there were flaws in the approach taken by Bruegemann, the study which effectively overturned it was also incorrect in its application.

After Bruegemann's study had shown that Pistorius used 25 per cent less oxygen than other sprinters during the 400 metres, the subsequent study found the figure to be 17 per cent.

But Rice contends that that figure was decreased, firstly in comparison to distance runners, and then to elite distance runners, to the point where it was within admissible levels.

"He uses 25 per cent less oxygen than sprinters during 400m sprinter [the German study]," Tucker said.

"He uses 17 per cent less oxygen than sprinters at slow speeds, seven per cent less than distance runners, and almost four per cent less than elite distance runners who are not even tested in the same laboratory.

"And this is the evidence which forms the basis for the paper in which they conclude that he is 'metabolically similar'.

"It was, in my opinion, an amazing conclusion to reach.

"And I appreciate the statistics of it, that they collected enough control data to conclude that he was 'statistically' similar.

"But that was because they added elite distance runners.

"So now we have a 400m sprinter, not even the best one who has ever lived, and his oxygen cost of running is LOWER than the lowest recorded human being ever."

Tucker (pictured), who is speaking at the ASICS UK Science Exercise and Medicine conference at London's ExCel in November, added: "Stats aside, what this means is that Oscar Pistorius is the most economical athlete, sprinter or distance runner, who has ever been measured.

"And that's despite running on a treadmill, at slow speeds, on blades that are especially designed for high speeds, and likely get more effective at those high speeds.

"Scientifically, I was astonished at that research, and in particular, the fact that it would be presented to the Court of Arbitration without any kind of peer-review.

"Nobody saw it until those judges saw it."

Eighteen months after his evidence helped to reverse the IAAF ban on Pistorius, Weyand published further research which he said showed that the South African did indeed gain advantage from his prosthetics, and suggesting that they gave him a 10 seconds advantage.

To read the full interview with Tucker click here.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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