Paralympic technology

AN ISSUE of fairness has long been a red flag to research teams aligned with privileged first-world Paralympics teams such as Great Britain, Australia and Japan. Initially introduced in 1948 as an initiative to get wounded war veterans back into sport, many argue that the modern-day use of advanced technology in the Paralympics puts teams without multi-million pound commercial partnerships at a disadvantage. At Beijing´s 2008 Paralympics, for example, a South African runner ran with his right leg on a prosthetic leg meant for the left side, while Australian Kelly Cartwright ran on a bespoke carbon fibre blade costing somewhere in the region of $1,500.