Résumé
Ensuring fairness is a capital issue in any sporting competition. However, fairness is a complex concept. We seek here to offer an analysis of the construction and upholding of fairness within competitions in which disabled people make use of assistive technology in order to perform. In this view, we look into two cases which question, in different manners, the issues surrounding the use of technology and sporting fairness: the cases of Oscar Pistorius and of the Cybathlon. On the one hand, in the Pistorius case, the sporting institution seeks to regulate the use of technology through a scientific measure of the advantage it may grant the athlete. The difficulty of determining this advantage, and of classifying Pistorius’ performance, promoted the production of an enhanced human imagery. On the other hand, with the Cybathlon, a competition including highly technologised athletes, the promoters try on the contrary to highlight the advantages that technology can procure. The aim in that case will be for the organisers to set in place a system of rules that mirror those of sporting fairness, in spite of the central position given to technological performance. The purpose of this essay will be to understand how this sporting fairness is constructed and negotiated within two specific cases portraying the sporting practices of disabled people.