Technology has helped para-athletes compete for decades, but it can also create an unfair advantage

The Paralympic Games, now a major global event, have a history rooted in rehabilitation.

The first official Paralympic Games were held in Rome in 1960. But their origins go back to 1948, when neurologist Ludwig Guttmann organised the Stoke Mandeville Games in England for World War II veterans with spinal cord injuries. He believed that sport could play an important role in rehabilitation, pushing the boundaries of human performance in ways that other approaches could not.

Today’s Paralympic Games continue this legacy, with technology playing a central role in these achievements.

Technology has enabled athletes with disabilities to reach incredible heights. However, it has also introduced new challenges, particularly in terms of fairness and justice in competition.

From simple to sophisticated

In the early days, Paralympic technology was rudimentary by today’s standards. Athletes competed in ordinary wheelchairs and used simple straps to assist them.

As the Paralympic Games grew in size, competitive success became increasingly prized. As a result, athletes turned to specialized technologies to gain a competitive advantage.

Running blades, for example, are carbon fiber prosthetics designed to mimic the natural movement of the legs while improving speed and flexibility. These blades have revolutionized track events, allowing athletes with lower limb amputees to compete at speeds comparable to, or sometimes faster than, able-bodied athletes.

South African sprinter and convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius was the first double amputee with running blades to compete at the London 2012 Olympics as part of the men’s 4×400 relay.

A changing conversation

However, by the late 2010s, the debate over assistive technology used by athletes had shifted from celebrating inclusion to debating unfair advantages.

In 2019, Blake Leeper, a double-amputee sprinter, applied to World Athletics to compete at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games against able-bodied athletes. The international athletics governing body received independent scientific advice that Leeper’s prosthetics gave him a competitive advantage and rejected the application.

Leeper challenged the decision before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but the court ruled against him.

Leeper, who is African-American, appealed the decision on the grounds that the scientific advice provided to World Athletics was based on racially biased science. But the court dismissed his appeal, finding the evidence was fair and unbiased.

As technology continues to advance, racing blades may soon seem modest compared to what the future holds.

A notable example is neuroprosthetics, devices that interact with the human nervous system to compensate for losses in muscle strength and endurance resulting from neurological disorders such as spinal cord injuries.

These devices can be attached externally or surgically implanted. They can improve functions such as seated stability and rowing performance.

It’s not hard to imagine some athletes using these devices to gain a significant, but perhaps undetectable, advantage over their competitors.

The International Paralympic Committee has established a policy on sports equipment. One of the principles is that sports performance should be determined primarily by human performance, with the effect of technology and equipment being secondary.

But to enforce this principle, there must be enforceable rules. As technology advances, this will become increasingly difficult, as is the case with the Olympic Games.

Leveling the playing field

Technology can also play a crucial role when it comes to ranking athletes.

Each of the 22 Paralympic sports uses a classification system to ensure fair and meaningful competition. Each athlete is classified according to the type and severity of their disability.

However, classification is not without challenges.

Despite considerable advances in research, the most effective and valid processes still rely on expert judgment. And even when classifiers follow strict guidelines, they must consider an incredibly wide range of test results.

Many classification tests also require athletes to perform at their maximum effort. This leaves open the possibility that an athlete wishing to gain an unfair competitive advantage may deliberately underperform on these tests to exaggerate the severity of their impairment. They could then be placed in a category of athletes with more severe impairments.

To address these challenges, we are part of a research team that is currently developing a classification system based on artificial intelligence.

We will use computer vision of Paralympic athletes performing a wide variety of movements over time to train the system and develop an app. The app will allow athletes around the world to film themselves performing sports-related tasks, submit the video, and receive an accurate and objective sports lesson.

This will make classifications more reliable and improve access for athletes from rural and remote areas or developing countries.

However, the diversity of para-athletes is enormous and the process of recruiting and filming a representative sample of high-level para-athletes will not be straightforward. Nor can the system fully protect against athletes who deliberately underperform. But it is able to detect variations in performance that occur over time and would not be detectable to the naked eye.

This will provide greater confidence in the accuracy of the athlete’s classification.

Once the system is developed, its success will also depend on the ability to gain the trust of the entire Paralympic community.

Using technology to gain an unfair advantage is as old as sports itself. But technology is also the tool we must use to ensure fairness and equal opportunity.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.