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Cyborg-athletes, Coercion Argument and Integrity of Sport

The paper was prompted by the request of the German paralympic cyborg-athlete Markus Rehm to compete at the athletic discipline of the long jump in the Olympic Games in Rio 2016. IAAF denied his request with the explanation that he failed to prove that the prosthesis he uses on the partly amputated right leg did not produce competitive unfair advantage. The authors find the case paradigmatic and exemplary, especially in the light of Markus Rehm being probably the world’s top long jumper in the moment. As his ’unfair advantage case’ was minutely described and thematised in the literature (Camporesi & McNamee, 2018), the authors would like to further the debate on inclusion of disabled athletes in able-bodied competitions, with the claim that such a case should not be considered only from the perspective of unfair advantage, but from the perspective of the coercion argument as well. Thus, in this paper, the authors will do just that. In the first part, in order to put things in the proper context, they will refer to the sports- philosophical literature to firstly, outline the definitions of cyborg-athletes presented so far (Miah, 2003 ; Ryall, 2012 ; Trivino, 2013 ; Lopez Frias, 2016), secondly, to invoke rationales for the coercion argument (Simon, 1984, 2004 ; Fraleigh, 1984 ; Veber, 2014 ; Schneider, 2016), and thirdly, to invoke the concept of integrity of sport (Cleret, McNamee & Page, 2015 ; Archer, 2016 ; Gardiner, Parry & Robinson, 2017). In the second part, the authors will approach the case from the coercion argument perspective. They will discuss possible consequences of the hypothetical approval to compete in the standard competitions and the coercion that can provide towards other disabled, as well as able-bodied athletes. Moreover, the author's will make a claim that such a coercion can influence and irreversibly change not only the particular sport (long jump) in many ways, but also endanger the very integrity of sport per se. In the final part, the authors will point out some possible future outcomes of such a scenario.

Cyborg-athletes, Coercion Argument, Integrity of Sport

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