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What if Oscar Pistorius’s inclusion in the Olympics is just the beginning? What if it’s the start of a new future where an amputee’s addition to an Olympic team doesn’t make headlines? A future where his legs act the same as yours?

Because South Africa named him to its Olympic track team, Pistorius, running on his J-shaped, carbon fiber Flex-Foot Cheetahs, will become the first amputee to compete in track at the Olympics. Beyond London, technology will evolve, the next-generation artificial leg will develop, and the track community will re-evaluate Pistorius and amputees in general, searching for the clear demarcation line where human meets superhuman and ending the debate there.

“In the future, when we have truly advanced systems, there will be an Olympic-sanctioned leg, just like the Cheetah now at the Olympics, and that leg will truly emulate flesh and bone,” said Hugh Herr, the director of the Biomechatronics Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“But technology may be so vast and sophisticated that there will be a limb that can extend beyond what nature intended, and that will certainly be used in the Paralympics — decrease running time, increase jumping time, beyond what nature is capable of,” he added.

That future, where artificial legs require less of a metabolic cost than biological legs, will come within the decade, Herr said. It’s not just a distant idea for M.I.T. researchers to develop such a bionic limb, but a goal.

The research has benefited from studying Pistorius, Herr said. He studied Pistorius and testified during the sprinter’s lengthy eligibility battle that scientific evidence did not support the international track federation’s contention that he had an advantage over two-legged runners in the 400 meters.

Instead, Herr found Pistorius’s J-shaped legs made his body work harder than a biological pair would. The next step will be a bionic leg that emulates a biological leg and its required work input. Artificial ankles have achieved biological-like functioning, as have legs for walking, but legs for running have not yet. Beyond that, bionic limbs will turn robotlike.

With each advancing limb, if Pistorius and other amputee runners choose to upgrade, it will be asked: Do the latest artificial legs offer some sort of advantage?

Initially, the I.A.A.F., the world governing body for track and field, had ruled Pistorius ineligible. There is no doubt that there will be similar fights in the future. The key will be finding a happy technological medium, the artificial limb that pushes limits to help amputees like Pistorius while stopping just short of unfair.

“Like a bicycle, like a motorcycle, eventually, in society, we’ll have arm-exoskeletal, leg-exoskeletal structures that will allow us to experience an increase in strength, an increase in endurance, an increase in power in our bodies,” Herr said. “It’s that human-machine interaction that will expand our physicality.”

He added: “We’re just seeing a glimpse of that here, and Pistorius is forcing — we’re allowing humanity to take a look into that future. And ask questions like, What does it mean to be human?”