title: Ethnicity and spatiotemporal parameters of bilateral and unilateral transtibial amputees in a 100-m sprint.
abstract: Similar to able-bodied sprinters, most of the medals for the 100-m sprint in past Paralympic Games and IPC Athletics World Championships were dominated by West African (WA) and Caucasian (CC) amputee sprinters, not Asian (AS) sprinters. Although these results indicate differences in sprint performance due to ethnicity, little is known about the ethnicity and spatiotemporal parameters of the 100-m sprint for amputee sprinters. The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in the spatiotemporal parameters of WA, CC and AS sprinters with bilateral and unilateral transtibial amputations during a 100-m sprint. We analyzed 6 WA, 28 CC, and 10 AS amputee sprinters from publicly available Internet broadcasts. For each sprinter's run, the average speed, average step length, and step frequency were calculated by using the number of steps in conjunction with the official race time. No significant differences were found in the spatiotemporal parameters of the 100-m sprint for the WA and CC groups. On the other hand, the average speed of the AS group was significantly lower because of its shorter step length during the 100-m sprint. The results suggest that WA and CC sprinters would perform similarly during a 100-m sprint, but AS sprinters would not.
authors.affiliation: Human Informatics Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Waterfront 3F, 2-3-26, Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0064 Japan.
authors.forename: Hiroaki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hobara
authors.affiliation: Human Informatics Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Waterfront 3F, 2-3-26, Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0064 Japan.
authors.forename: Satoru
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hashizume
authors.affiliation: Human Informatics Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Waterfront 3F, 2-3-26, Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0064 Japan.
authors.forename: Yoshiyuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kobayashi
authors.affiliation: Human Informatics Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Waterfront 3F, 2-3-26, Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0064 Japan.
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Usami
authors.affiliation: Human Informatics Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Waterfront 3F, 2-3-26, Aomi, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0064 Japan.
authors.forename: Masaaki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mochimaru
keywords: Prosthetic sprinting; Running-specific prostheses; Step frequency; Step length