Pistorius on track after legal battle
EMMELOORD, Netherlands – Oscar Pistorius dipped across the finish line and his J-shaped carbon-fiber racing prosthetics finally came to a standstill.
The race had been almost too good to be true.
The double-amputee was running competitively again and embarking on his bid to qualify for the Beijing Olympics.
“It was kind of surreal,” Pistorius said after winning the 200 meters at the Dutch Open for paralympic athletes Saturday.
His time of 22.04 seconds was well off his paralympic world record of 21.58, but the 21-year-old South African couldn’t help but smile.
“Red track, green grass and blue skies,” Pistorius marveled. “Compared to the white walls of the (testing) institute or the dark woods of a courtroom, it is not the same.”
The race opened a new chapter after months of uncertainty.
A study of his racing blades – the Cheetah prosthetics he competes on – found they give him a mechanical advantage, but his legal challenges culminated in a ruling May 16 that overturned a ban on Pistorius running alongside able-bodied competitors.
Pistorius, who also holds the paralympic world records in the 100 and 400, is trying to qualify in the 400 for Beijing. To do so, he will have to lower his personal best from 46.34 to 45.55, the Olympic qualifying standard.
Though Pistorius isn’t sure whether he can do it, he has had to beat the odds so often that he has taken to the name “Seabiscuit,” and it brings out the broadest of smiles. He rejects such nicknames as “Blade Runner” and “the fastest man on no legs” as “all boring stuff.”
“It starts slow, but ends fast,” he said of Seabiscuit, the scrawny and stubborn horse who became a thoroughbred champion and captured the imagination of the United States during the Depression.
Overcoming adversity has been a theme in Pistorius’ life, ever since his legs were amputated below the knee when he was 11 months old because he had no fibulas.
Saturday there was only the event to worry about. It had the banter, grunting and shouting of fellow disabled athletes, the pristine beauty of a simple running oval amid tall trees and surrounded by flat Dutch fields.
“I must be grateful to be back on the track,” he said. “I had a good time just running again.”
After all the attention from around the world it was refreshing to be announced by the stadium speaker as “a little something special” – no more than that among disabled athletes.
Today, he will run the 100 and 400 – and hopefully shake off some rust.
“We were hoping for a sub-22 (in the 200),” he said. Because the legal battle over his status took so long, Pistorius has a lot of catching up to do.
“Now we have a six-week cycle to see what we can achieve,” said his coach, Ampie Louw.
Pistorius is in the midst of a rigorous training regimen that may tire and slow him over the next few weeks, but could pay dividends when he starts racing in able-bodied events in July.
“It is part of the bigger picture for Beijing,” said Pistorius, “be it the Olympics or the Paralympics.”
Pistorius plans to run in an able-bodied race July 2 in Milan, Italy, with possibly two more thrown in before that. After Milan, he will compete in Rome on July 11 and Lucerne, Switzerland, on July 16.
He declined an invitation to run at the Berlin Golden League meet today because he is not ready.
And the Beijing Games may come too soon.
“It is going to be very difficult, to be honest,” Pistorius said. “I am not confident I am going to make it.”
If no South African runner reaches the 45.55 qualifying time, he could qualify with a “B” standard time of 45.83.
Getting on the South African relay team also offers him an opportunity. Pistorius could be taken to Beijing as an alternate. Six runners can be picked for the relay squad, which would need to be one of the world’s top 16 teams to participate in the games.