Raikas

Even in the able-bodied version, biathlon and nordic skiing (aside from the sprint event & relay) have staggered starts, so some racers start 15 or more minutes behind the first. The athletes run against the clock, not directly against each other since the first person to start would otherwise have a massive advantage. The extra element in the paralympic version is the disability classes. As an amputee, Masters is the least disabled class in sit-skiing, so the clock runs at 100% for her, versus a paraplegic (no hip movement or abdominal muscles) like Yang whose clock runs at 86%. In the VI classes, the people with some vision run at 99% versus 88% for the ones with no vision. The standing races have more classifications because there are so many different disabilities - in yesterday's men's standing race the three medalists were in three different classes, Wang (no arms) clocks at 90%, Daviet (missing one knee joint) at 93%, and Cai (missing one hand) at 96%. Standing gets additionally complicated because the clocks are different for skate-style versus classic style (essentially, the one-arm skiers are more impaired for classic, but the one-leg skiers are more impaired for skate). I hope that helps a bit!

Yeah, although in the case of Whitehead, we're a long, long way from above-knee prosthetics being anywhere near as fast as anyone with knee joints, so I don't see that being the driver behind that particular decision. Interesting article though. One of the commentators for the biathlon said something similar about side-differences, not because of prosthetics, but that skiers using a single pole on the left versus on the right were better able to handle certain turns. At a certain point, even in a sport with factored times, it seems like there has to be a certain amount of inequality just built in. Markus Rehm's case is interesting, although I feel like it's missing a piece of the puzzle to not mention that virtually all (I think it was something like 8 out of 9 in the last world's) wears exactly the same blade that he does while he's jumping nearly a metre further than them every time. If the blade itself were a straightforward advantage why aren't they all benefiting the same way? As much as I respect paralympic sport, I think Rehm is a lot more fun to watch when he's in grand prix-type events with able-bodied athletes because at least there he has some competition. He wins by such huge margins in para-athletics events that as a viewer you're really only watching to see if he breaks his own world record.

True enough. I have to say, watching the biathlon/x-country here does make me wonder why they can't do mixed-class events in the distance running events in the summer paralympics. I know there have been leg amputees (especially Richard Whitehead, I think?) who were campaigning to be able to run the marathon with the arm classes, and it seemed like the argument boiled down to "it would be confusing". But since they can do it in the nordic events it seems like that means it's not actually much of an issue.

I've never been a big fan of watching the nordic/biathlon events in the Olympics (although I think cross-country skiing itself is fun), but I'm finding watching the standing paralympic biathlon (and cross-country) races really fascinating. In the Olympics (and in the paralympic sitting and VI classes) those races are almost relaxing (as a viewer, obviously) since everyone goes through more-or-less the same motions, but the standing race has so many different techniques that it's almost like watching an applied physics lesson in all the different ways someone can ski and drop down/get up to shoot depending on their particular component of body parts. In the men's those two top competitors (the one-armed Canadian guy and the French guy with no knee joint) have such completely different ways of moving, it's like no other sport I've ever watched. It's wild.

He didn't catch himself though, he stopped because Mary signed "I know". If she hadn't, I think he probably wouldn't have kept going.