Lee Gaskin June 01, 2012
Paralympic Sprinter Scott Reardon, 21, practising at the AIS using state-of-the-art prosthetic limbs. Photo: Jay Cronan
While the gleaming carbon fibre limb on Scott Reardon’s right leg catches the eye, it’s the revolutionary knee joint attached to the 22-year-old’s artificial leg which looms as his secret weapon heading into the London Paralympic Games.
It’s the little blue device a handful of athletes in the world possess.
While the gleaming carbon fibre limb on Scott Reardon’s right leg catches the eye, it’s the revolutionary knee joint attached to the 22-year-old’s artificial leg which looms as his secret weapon heading into the London Paralympic Games.
‘‘It’s a bit of a loophole,’’ the Canberra-based sprinter explains.
‘‘I’ll be the third person in my classification with this knee.’’
Right now, there’s no argument about its legality.
The hydraulic joint satisfies all three technical requirements – that it has to be available on the market, the height of the running foot is below the required standard and it’s not allowed to have a computer.
The knee joint in question is designed for walking but has been modified for running.
Yet the improvements are so substantial and drastic that those who don’t have access to the technology stand to be at a serious disadvantage.
Since obtaining the hydraulic joint in February, Reardon’s times have dropped dramatically, especially in the 200 metres.
He has wiped an incredible 1.3 seconds from his 200m time (from 27.7 seconds to 26.38s) and a handy tenth of a second from his best 100m performance (12.84s to 12.72s).
‘‘It’s going to be more beneficial over the 200 because I can run faster for longer because it doesn’t fatigue me as much,’’ he said.
‘‘The energy involved actually running fast isn’t as much as it was in the old leg, that’s the biggest difference.’’
German athlete Heinrich Popow, a multiple medallist in the T42 classification in the 100m, 200m, high jump and long jump from the past two Paralympic Games, and the joint’s inventor, believed it would lead to a one-second improvement over 200m.
Reardon has worked closely with APC Prosthetics’ Cameron Ward, who helped in acquiring the modified knee joint from Popow at last year’s world championships in New Zealand.
Ward has a long history with track and field amputees, having worked with Australian athletes at the 2000 Sydney Paralympics.
‘‘It’s a bit under wraps, the rest of the world isn’t running on it,’’ Ward said.
‘‘It seems to be a lot smoother.
‘‘I met up with him (Popow) last year and was very interested in it.
‘‘You can’t put a figure on the time, but it’s a considerable difference.’’
The rest is due to Reardon’s ability to blast out of the blocks and find every millisecond possible.
When I meet Reardon, he’s charging up the Australian Institute of Sport athletics track, bursting out of the start blocks, before turning off the afterburners and cruising the 40m it takes for his body to come to a halt - the prosthetic is impossible to slow down.
He repeats the process multiple times, hovering over a laptop in between each attempt to monitor his progress and gauge feedback on how to get the most out of his 165cm, 62kg frame.
Checking out the vision are two interested onlookers.
Doug Rosemond specialises in analysing every minute facet of an athlete’s start.
Here, he is watching for the angle of trajectory out of the start blocks and what effect that has on Reardon’s reaction time.
Rosemond has been doing this for the past 14 years, and is a senior biomechanist at the AIS.
Also gathering around the computer screen is Irina Dvoskina, a former Ukranian coach who noticed something special in Reardon the moment he arrived at the AIS in 2008.
‘‘It was a bit of a light bulb moment where we had to have him starting differently to able-bodied athletes,’’ Rosemond explains.
‘‘These guys, because the knees straighten, they somehow have to get that back under them.
‘‘They need to come up higher and compress it.
‘‘There’s a limit as to how low you can go.
‘‘Feedback he gets straight away with the video is important because he can get the feel of what he needs to produce against the blocks to get that angle.
‘‘If he comes back in two hours it means nothing to him.
‘‘It all happens within half a second.
‘‘Eventually when you get it right you have the immediate feel.’’
Unlike an able-bodied athlete, Reardon cannot generate a large amount of force out of his prosthetic leg, which affects the angle at which he needs to start.
At age 12, he lost his right leg when his shoelace got caught in a tractor.
It wasn’t until seven years later, in 2009, that he began running again.
‘‘It was a pretty unbelievable feeling, when you haven’t done something for such a long time,’’ he said.
‘‘Bit of freedom - move a little bit faster than I was before.
‘‘Tried to run on walking legs, but it’s a disaster waiting to happen.’’
Incredibly, he hadn’t suffered a fall while running until the 2009 nationals.
Reardon jokes that vision of him catching his toe in the track and hitting the surface is a must-see on You Tube.
What he doesn’t tell you is he was an online sensation even before he could run again, thanks to his one-legged water skiing exploits.
Reardon will compete in the 100m and 200m at the Paralympic Games, as well as the 4x100m relay.
Once his training is finished for the day, Reardon removes the running prosthetic and replaces it with a state of the art walking leg.
How state of the art?
We’re talking legs the US military use to send solders back to the front line once they’ve lost a limb.
High-tech sensors monitor a change in incline, adjusting the amount of hydraulics required to move with ease.
The pricetag -a hefty $120,000.
But when you consider the improvements it has provided to Reardon’s everyday life, it’s worth every cent.
He can now complete the most simplest of tasks his old leg used to refuse to complete.
‘‘If I went down a hill, it would collapse, it was terrible,’’ he said.
‘‘With these computers, it just won’t happen.
‘‘Just being able to walk up stairs is making a huge difference to my strength because I was never able to activate my glute muscles.
‘‘What I can do in the gym has increased.
‘‘Two or three years ago when this leg wasn’t available, it’s something you didn’t think was going to be possible.’’
Reardon will train with the rest of the Australian paralympic athletics team on the Gold Coast for the next couple of weeks.
He will use races in Europe to ensure he’s at his peak by the time the Paralympics roll around.
And the racing knee?
It’ll be kept under lock and key, hopefully providing the edge which results in Reardon leaving London with a valuable piece of metal around his neck.