Oscar Pistorius - an inspirational icon

Who is the most inspirational athlete on the African continent, or for that matter, on any continent? Some would argue swimmer Natalie du Toit, others would cast their vote for the Spanish wunderkind, Rafael Nadal. Countless millions would support the charismatic Tiger Woods, the greatest golfer of his (and possibly any) generation.

But do not discard the 22-year-old fastest man on no legs, Oscar Pistorius – the current world record holder in the 100-metre, 200-metre and 400-metre for Paralympic athletes, whose ability to overcome misfortunes has set him apart and made him an international icon of note.

His appearance on the 2008 TIME 100 – TIME magazine’s annual list of the world’s most influential people – ranked third in the Heroes & Pioneers section – affirms his status as an inspirational icon.

Eric Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mount Everest, wrote in an essay that Pistorius was “on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage.

“Yet we mustn’t lose sight of what makes an athlete great. It’s too easy to credit Pistorius’ success to technology,” he wrote.

“Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it’s what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion.” (Source: Wikipedia.org).

But what sets Pistorius apart, and what are his goals and ambitions for the second part of his Paralympic and Olympic career?

We traced his origins on a walk through memory lane as documented in his recently launched autobiography Oscar Pistorius: Blade Runner, and spoke to him about the next chapter of his life.

Invincible, and a love for wrestling and cricket

In his autobiography, Pistorius revealed how, as a 17-month-old baby, he received his first prosthetics.

From that moment on, he became invincible, he said. “My energy was boundless, and I saw no reason why my new legs would not be able to take me everywhere I needed or wanted to go,” he said.

He was born without a fibula, a bone stretching from the ankle to the knee which supports the full weight of the body.

His parents, Henk and Sheila Pistorius, were “stubborn” people, said Oscar in his autobiography.

They researched his condition meticulously, consulted with 11 specialists and finally had a round-table meeting with the three top medical practitioners before asking Dr Gerry Versveld to amputate both legs when Pistorius was 11 months old.

He was not keen on athletics as a child, however, he loved cricket and was a good all-rounder. He started wrestling when he was six years old and revelled in the sport by winning his first medal at the age of six.

A life-changing event

Pistorius adored rugby and thoroughly enjoyed playing the game. He said in Blade Runner he exploited the fact that some opponents were nervous and frightened of his prostheses.

On 21 June 2003, he was playing rugby when he was tackled after a “hospital pass”.

He was tackled and smashed by two enormous players, and when he finally hit the ground, he saw that his left leg was sticking out all askew.

“The next day I woke up with a very swollen and bruised knee. I could hardly move, and soon found myself back in the care of Versveld.

“It looked like my sporting days were over. I was only 16,” he revealed in his autobiography.

The patient rehabilitation by Dr Versveld, the work in the evolution of prostheses technology by Chris Hatting, and the mentorship of Ampie Louw changed all of that.

Hatting invited Pistorius to fly to the United States in June 2004 to trial his new brand of prostheses known as Cheetahs.

Constructed from carbon fibre, they give their new users unprecedented freedom because of their particular combination of durability and lightness. Ever since that first trial, Cheetahs became Oscar’s running legs.

“When I started running for my rugby rehabilitation, I thought, ‘Geez, this is terrible’,” Oscar told the Sunday Times. “Lo and behold, months later, I was running at the South African championships for disabled athletes, and eight months later I was in Athens.”

He took the gold in the 200-metre in Athens, ahead of Marlon Shirley, and then world champion, Brian Frasure.

Those Flex-Foot carbon-fibre transibial artificial limbs by Ossur, earned him international iconic status as the Blade Runner, but he also became the centre of a protracted legal battle with the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

In 2007, Pistorius took part in his first international able-bodied race, the 400-metre at Rome’s Golden Gala. He finished second in run B with a time of 46.90 seconds, behind Stefano Braciola who ran 46.72 seconds.

Pistorius then started a lengthy legal battle with the IAAF to be allowed to compete against able-bodied athletes in 2008. This was after a series of tests by the IAAF were said to show that his legs would give him an ‘unfair advantage’.

Pistorius and his team of advisers appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and it was upheld. He wrote in the autobiography: “It was a surreal moment for me and it took us a while for the significance of the decision to sink in.

“It was everything that I had hoped for and yet the reality of it all swept me away. We were all jumping up and down, shouting in delight and hugging one another.

“I always like to quote Pietro Mennea’s words: ‘Sport is like an elevator, everybody should be allowed to ride in it’.”

Pistorius failed to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics by 0.27 seconds, but went on to win the 100-metre, 200-metre and 400-metre at the Paralymics in Beijing in 2008, bagging three golds for South Africa.

A new setback and a fresh start

Pistorius told of how a freak crash near Johannesburg in February 2009 shattered his face and smashed an eye socket, his jaw, nose and two ribs.

Training had been going well, so he suggested to a mate that they take a boat out on the Vaal River to relax.

It is a narrow river and many of the jetties are old and do not have flotation devices. When the water level is high, as it was that day, the jetties are submerged.

They were not going too quickly, probably no more than 30kph (18mph), but they hit a submerged pier and Oscar was thrown hard onto the steering wheel.

He lost much blood and it was quite a scary ordeal. “My nose sort of peeled open, my orbital socket disintegrated and my nasal cavity broke from my nose to the top of my jaw.

“I had to be airlifted to hospital and the doctors had to do quite a bit of work,” he said.

“I still have a bit of pain in my face. I’ve a piece of plastic under my eye, and the doctors say the swelling in my nose will take anything from six to 12 months to go down.

“I’ve lost about six kilos in the last 12 weeks. “That’s a lot of muscle, a lot of physical endurance that I’ll have to build up again,” he said.

Pistorius stubbornly refused not to miss the BT Paralympic World Cup in May 2009 in spite of his setback. He won the 100-metre and 400-metre at the Cup, of which he is the official ambassador.

He was disappointed about his times, and said: “Let’s be honest, it was shocking. It was the worst time I’ve run in about three-and-a-half years. But I know I wasn’t running hard and I know I can run better.”

Louw, Oscar’s coach, says the Olympic qualifying time at this stage is 45.4s. “His personal best is 46s, but Oscar is unbelievably determined and I believe that if we are given time, he could still achieve his ambition to qualify for the 2012 London Olympics.”

Louw also revealed that Oscar suffered badly from a nose and chest infection before the races at the Paralympics, but still grabbed three gold medals.

His life motto, and inspirational figures

Pistorius acknowledges that his late mother, Sheila is still one of his greatest inspirations.

His lifelong motto is: “You’re not disabled by the disabilities you have. You’re able by the abilities you have.”

So the 22-year old is not about to throw in the proverbial towel after the freak boat accident set him back temporarily.

“As a kid, there was never a question of me going to a school for physical disabilities,” he said. “Mother made sure of that. In her eyes, no challenge was too great and she instilled that in me.”

His father and his coach have also been great mentors and sources of inspiration.

His father believed that his children could do whatever they set their minds to. He had great faith in their capabilities.

One one occasion, he allowed his children to bake a cake. The plan was to cook the cake in a saucepan.

Carl, as the eldest, turned on the stove and requested that Oscar – as his helper – get the flour. He sat on the work surface and had no wish to climb down and up again on the other side. So he decided to climb across the glass cover that went over the stove.

Needless to say, he burnt his stumps badly and landed in the intensive care unit.

Of his coach, Oscar says: “Ampie is an excellent coach. With me he uses the zones method, a sporting technique made famous by Michael Johnson. When I race, I do a lot of stretching during my warm-up, then I enter the first zone.

“I relax by deep breathing and by visualising the race in my mind. It is as if I am mentally programming myself as I map out the points at which I need to accelerate, others where I need to conserve energy, and then the stretch in which I have to give the race everything I have.”

An academy, a degree and the major London goal

Pistorius has held initial talks about setting up some sort of academy for Paralympic athletes in South Africa, however, with his summer season now in full swing, such talks have been put on hold.

He has also been studying for a degree at the University of South Africa, although he admits he is far from being the model student.

“Sport was my thing at school because I was no good with the books,” he said, “and I’m trying to change that, but it’s damned hard. I’m enjoying the degree. It’ll take me four times longer than everyone else, as I can only do it in bits, but it’s great to have something to fall back on.”

Pistorius told Leadership: “I would like to finish off my B.Comm Business Management degree and would then like to study in the field of Architecture. I have a passion and love for design and form, so this would be a dream come true.”

Reflecting on 2008 and looking to the remainder of 2009, he told the magazine: “My goals for 2009 are to firstly run a personal best time. I am feeling fairly strong and it being early in the season, my times are respectable.

“I would also like to qualify for the World Championships in Berlin later in the year. In order to do so, I need to bring my times down, so hard work is in sight.

“My goals for 2010 would include to break a record or two in the disabled World Championships in New Zealand,” he added.

“Last season I ran a personal best of 46.23s on the 400-metre. I needed to run a B qualification of 45.95s, so I missed it by 0.27s, which as you can imagine was a disappointment to me.

“Once I looked back on the year though, in due course I was happy with my performances; I had run a personal best in my last race and had limited time to prepare for the Qualification cut-off date.

“I am looking forward to the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, I am pretty hard on myself in training and have no doubt that I should make it out onto the track in both competitions, which are equally dear to me.

“That’s the goal for me (The Olympic Games in 2012 in London),” he said. “Since starting athletics, I’ve wanted to run at the Olympics and I’ve set my heart on that. I’m getting there and I know I can do it.”

There have been preliminary approaches from three Hollywood studios to do a movie on the life story and spectacular feats of the inspirational Pistorius.

But he wants nothing of it for now: “These are still in the pipeline. I think that is something I prefer to do once “I have retired from athletics. I still hope that there is more to accomplish before a movie is written.”

A love affair with the United Kingdom, but the Boks will win

Pistorius’ sporting idols are mostly Britons, like Joe Calzaghe and Colin Jackson. Pistorius said he found it amazing that they achieved by staying at the top of their profession for such a prolonged period.

“The other sporting idol is not British, but he lived here for a while I think, and that’s Valentino Rossi. I look up to him for the same reason and the fact that he seems to be a nutter, but he gets in the zone when it matters to win.”

Pistorius would like to leave a similar legacy. He added: “Well, I don’t want people to think I’m nuts, but I like the idea that people think I could be fun and enjoy life off the track as well as turn it on on the track.”

So in that respect, does he liken himself to the fast food-eating, hard-partying Usain Bolt?

“Well, I’m not sure we’re comparable,” he said. “He is absolutely amazing. He’s just a ‘what you see is what you get’ kind of guy, and I like that. It just so happens he’s damned fast too,” he told Orange Sport.

The other love of Pistorius is rugby. He is close friends with many of the Springboks taking on the British and Irish Lions in the three-test series.

His European training schedule will not allow him to return from Italy to South Africa to go to the stadiums and watch all three tests. But he promises to watch the tests on television if he can. “I reckon it’ll be a great series, but obviously the South Africans will win,” he says.

Source: “Oscar Pistorius: Blade Runner”,
autobiography of Oscar Pistorius
(Virgin Books)

Fanie Heyns