Thank goodness for track & field. It takes some of the heat off of MLB and Roger Clemens.

Aside from the less-than-shocking announcement that Marion Jones will get 6-months in prison for her web of deceipt, the big new is that Oscar Pistorius, a South African double-amputee sprinter, will most likely be barred from the Beijing Olympic Games.

There are many reasons to applaud this decision with the top one being that it anticipates what will happen in the future.

Pistorius was born without fibulae (the thin bone next to your shin bone) and he had both legs amputated below the knee at age 11. Therefore, he runs using special carbon fiber prosthetic legs called "Cheetah" extensions.

Pistorius is not fighting to run in the Paralympics but rather the regular Olympics.

There is some debate about the data which demonstrated that the "Cheetah" extensions give him a clear advantage over other runners who don't use that device. What is clear is that regardless of what the numbers show, he should never ever be allowed to run in the regular Olympics.

Why?

There's something called "precedent". And once that door is open, it's almost impossible to shut.

Maybe Pistorius wouldn't make the South African Olympic team for this upcoming summer. But that's not the point.

The point is that there is a good reason why no one with prosthetic limbs should ever be allowed to compete with someone who has all of their limbs: advances in the future.

It is just a matter of time before those "Cheetah" extensions give such a tremendous mechanical advantage to its user that regular runners would not be able to compete. Think about it like an Olympic swimmer having to compete against a swimmer with similar upper-body strength and arm technique but who is a double-amputee using fins for prosthetics. It wouldn't even be a close battle. The double-amputee would win every time.

How about a pitcher with an artificial arm that allows him to throw a baseball 140 miles per hour. It may seem impossible now, but it's an inevitability.

Suppose that today you allow a baseball player to compete in MLB with an artificial leg (a prosthetic below the knee). Would that player have an advantage? No. The technology hasn't advanced that point yet. But it will. And what if such a player were running to second base and slid and snapped the prosthetic in the same manner that a an athlete without prosthetics would snap a tibia or fibula. Would that player be allowed to go to the dugout and switch the broken prosthetic for a new one? Or would he have to sit out the average time that an able-bodied runner would be out with a similar injury? These are the types of questions that have to be addressed now ahead of the technological advancement. The problem is that once you let such a prosthetic-utilizing player onto the field, it will be very difficult to draw the line at which prosthetics are allowed and which are not.

Therefore, any sport at a high level should have a very simple rule: you must compete using only the same types of equipment as your competitors. If everyone else is running in shorts, shirts, socks, and sneakers, then no one else should be able to use anything else. Period.

My guess is that we're not too far away from a time when amputees using things like the "Cheetah" extensions will run faster than any able-bodies athlete. How do I know this? Because the last time I checked, if I want to travel a mile as quickly as possible, I'm going to ride a motorcycle over pedaling a bicycle. Technology wins almost every time.

Are people like Pistorius dealt an unfair hand from birth? Yes. But we shouldn't let our sympathy for his suffering cause us to overcompensate and create a lot of suffering for others. He has a place that he can compete. And one day it's entirely possible that the top 5 finishers in a Paralympic 400-meter dash will run faster than any Olympian has ever run that distance. But if the goal of banning steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs is to create a level playing field, then there's no place for limb prosthetics on a field with able-bodied athletes.

Prosthetics have as much legitimacy as steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs: only if everyone gets to use them.