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Oscar Pistorius' blade maker: Inside his Arkansas workshop

June 12, 2014 / 01:41

This episode covers the development of Oscar Pistorius' running blades, featuring insights from Francois Vanderwat, who helped create them.

Francois Vanderwat discusses his journey in designing the blades, emphasizing the trial and error involved in creating a custom fit for athletes. He explains how they transitioned from sketches to functional prosthetics.

The episode highlights the specific features of the cheetah foot, which was inspired by Pistorius and made of carbon fiber. Vanderwat describes how the design aims to optimize performance without providing an unfair advantage.

Listeners learn about the collaboration with Nike to develop a spike plate for the foot, showcasing the continuous effort to improve the technology.

Vanderwat reflects on the impressive speed athletes can achieve with the blades, capturing the essence of innovation in prosthetic design.

TLDR

Francois Vanderwat discusses the creation and design of Oscar Pistorius' running blades and their impact on performance.

Episode

1:41
00:00:03
Nearly 9,000 miles away from South Africa, here in Fort Smith, Arkansas, we found a man who knew Oscar Pistorius
00:00:11
before he became an international icon. My name is Francois Vanderwat and I helped create the Blade
00:00:19
Runner. We originally started just drawing on a piece of paper what a blade maybe should look like. And I mean,
00:00:26
there's no science behind it. It was kind of a trial and error. It's like shoes. You got to make that custom fit
00:00:33
for you. So, how does this work? So, here we have what we call a regular walking prosthetic. So, when we work
00:00:40
with an athlete, this part is going to be taken away. This is what we uh call the cheetah foot. So, it's very similar
00:00:47
to what Oscar used. And this specific model was actually inspired by Oscar. This is made of carbon fiber and he
00:00:56
sprints with the blade. Yes. So, this connection point here is where we can now start making adjustments. This is
00:01:03
spike plate. So, uh Nike actually developed this specifically for this foot. You're always thinking, what can I
00:01:09
do better? What can I align better? Can I make it faster? Can I help improve his
00:01:15
performance? But is it an an advantage? No, it's not an advantage because this will only gives back what is put into
00:01:22
it. So if the athlete doesn't apply the force or the load to it, it's not going to return that. I think it's more of
00:01:29
optimizing to complement what he naturally has. It feels like, wow, this is pretty unreal to see you go so fast
00:01:37
around the track.

Episode Highlights

  • Creating the Blade Runner
    Francois Vanderwat shares the journey of designing the Blade Runner prosthetic for Oscar Pistorius.
    “We originally started just drawing on a piece of paper what a blade maybe should look like.”
    @ 00m 19s
    June 12, 2014
  • The Science of Speed
    Francois explains the technology behind the cheetah foot used by Oscar Pistorius.
    “This will only give back what is put into it.”
    @ 01m 18s
    June 12, 2014

Episode Quotes

Key Moments

  • Designing the Blade00:17
  • Cheetah Foot Explained00:45
  • Optimizing Performance01:29