Olympic dream over for the blade runner

With all the furore raised over Dwain Chambers’ failure to turn over his Olympic ban, the disintegration of another man’s Beijing dream went largely unnoticed.

When South Africa announced its Olympic team this week there was no place for Oscar Pistorius.

The disabled 400m runner, dubbed ‘the blade runner’ due to his prosthetic legs, missed out on selection after losing his battle not in the courts but out on the track.

Like Chambers the South African had been involved in a lengthy legal fight for the right to run at Beijing but Pistorius was actually successful in that respect when the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled in May that his prosthetics did not give him an unfair advantage over other runners.

However, rather than take the Chambers approach of qualifying for the games before leaving the final decision to a judge, the blade runner won the right to compete first and then had to qualify on merit.

Despite the 21-year-old’s reputation as ‘the fastest man on no legs’, Pistorius knew this battle was going to be equally difficult and in the end he came up short.

In his last chance to qualify in Lucerne Pistorius ran a personal best of 46.25s but that was still outside the Olympic qualifying standard of 45.55s and he wasn’t selected for the relay because four other South African’s have run quicker times this year.

There can be no argument and Pistorius would be the last person to expect special preference because
of his disability.

His whole campaign was about being able to compete with able-bodied athletes and to be treated the same as them.

Pistorius has won a host of bravery awards and special merit awards for the way he has struggled against the odds but there is no doubt that what he really wants is to compete and win medals against able-bodied runners.

Pistorius is now expected to compete – and dominate – in the Paralympics in September, and while his ultimate dream may not be realised this summer in Beijing, he is still young and it may not be too long before he is able to compete in major competitions.

Meanwhile next month he can cheer on his compatriot Natalie Du Toit, the 10km open water swimmer who will be the first amputee to compete against able-bodied swimmers at the Olympics.

Chambers and Pistorius may both be missing out on Beijing and the pair are already talking about turning their attentions to 2012, with Chambers still hopeful of having his Olympic ban overturned in the future.

It may not be very patriotic but I will only be cheering one of them on if they make it to the start line in London – come on the blade runner!