Oscar Pistorius: biography

Oscar Pistorius is a world class Paralympian athlete competing in all the sprinting events from 100m to 400m. He is also well known for attempting to qualify for the able bodied Olympics. Read on to find out if he's managed it.

Beginnings

Oscar was born on 22 November in 1986 in Johannesburg. He was born without the fibula bone in both of his legs and at 11 months old had both his legs amputated between his knees and ankles. He started his sporting life playing rugby at 11 while at school and he also played water polo and tennis. After a serious knee injury while playing rugby he was introduced to athletics in 2004 and since then he has not looked back. Known as the "Blade Runner" because of the special artificial legs he uses to race on he is aiming for the 2012 Olympics in London and would like to compete as both an able bodied and Paralympic athlete. He has been the subject of much criticism because of the blades and was banned from even attempting to compete with able bodied athletes in the Olympics because they believed his blades would give him an unfair advantage, Oscar took the case to the high court and won and is now concentrating his training on London.

Career

In 2004 when Oscar started in athletics he was immediately picked for the Athens games. He went on to win a bronze medal in the 100m and although he fell in the qualifying rounds of the 200m he won the final in a world record time of 21.97 seconds. Since his arrival into the world of athletics Oscar has set many world records and won golds at both the Paralympic World Cup and also at the Beijing games in 2008. He is determined to compete against able bodied athletes at an Olympics game and this year ran an excellent 400m at a qualifying competition for the South African Championships. It was here that he broke the world record and went sub 46 seconds in a time of 45.61 seconds which gives him the B qualifying standard for the 2011 World Championships in Daegu. He now has two months to achieve the A standard.

Achievements

Along with his four Paralympic Gold medals Oscar is also the world record holder in the 100m, 200m and 400m for the T44 category. He has the following personal bests: 100m - 10.91 seconds
200m - 21.58 seconds
400m - 45.61 seconds In comparison to able bodied athletes he is capable of holding his own in London 2012 and well deserves his title of "The Fastest Man On No Legs"