One of sport's most compelling Olympic stories comes to a climax Friday when double amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius learns from the Court of Arbitration for Sports if he can represent South Africa at the Beijing Olympics in August.
Pistorius, a 21-year-old business management student from Pretoria, was born without the fibula bones in his lower legs. His lower legs were amputated when he was 11, but he took on a sporting lifestyle nonetheless and took up running as a way to improve his stamina for rugby. He became a Paralympic star and world record holder.
Pistorius had been closing in on an Olympic qualifying time for the 400 metres, running on J-shaped prosthetics known as Cheetahs when international track and field authorities ruled he was getting a mechanical assist from the artificial limbs. He was banned by the International Association of Athletics Federations from competing against able-bodied athletes.
Pistorius appeared before a CAS panel at a two-day appeal hearing last month in Lausanne, Switzerland, with fresh, independent research that refuted IAAF tests – conducted by German professor Gert-Peter Brueggemann – showing he needed 30 per cent less effort to run than an able bodied athlete because of the springy blades.
Pistorius' legal team presented results from tests conducted by MIT professor Hugh M. Herr. He is asking the CAS to overturn the IAAF ban to give him a chance to make the qualifying time. His goal has been to run as part of the South African 4 x 400-metre relay team at Beijing.
He competed in sanctioned races with two-legged runners last year, including last July's Golden League meeting in Rome, and his own country's national championships in which he finished second in the 400 metres. His best 400-metre time is an amputee world record 46.56 seconds. He was approaching the qualifying standard for the 2008 Olympics, 45.95 seconds when the IAAF banned him.
Since Pistorius began his quest to get the ruling struck down, a precedent has emerged for an amputee Paralympian to compete in the Olympics. Earlier this month, amputee swimmer Natalie du Toit, another South African, earned a spot in the open water swim field at Beijing when she finished fourth in the 10-km world qualifying race off Seville, Spain.
The Cape Town swimmer lost a leg in a motor scooter accident at 16 after narrowly missing out making the pool racing team for the Sydney Games in 2000.
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