Oscar back with a bang!
Brad Morgan
3 June 2008
The Dutch Open Paralympic meeting, held in Emmeloord at the weekend, is usually a low-key affair, but the international media descended on the event as Oscar Pistorius made his return to the track after the Court of Arbitration for Sports ruled he could compete at the Olympic Games.
Considering the amount of time he had expended fighting an Olympic ban, his return to action produced encouraging results.
The double-amputee star opened his account on Friday with victory in the 200 metres in 22.04 seconds, some way off his best of 21.58, but a very good time nonetheless.
400 metres
The next day, he won the 400 metres, the event he hopes to qualify in for the Beijing Olympics, in a time of 47.92 seconds. His personal best is 46.56, while the Olympic 'B' qualifying standard is 45.95.
Pistorius has admitted that the chances of him qualifying for Beijing are slim; the fight against his ban took valuable training time away from the 21-year-old and, before that setback is considered, he still needs to improve his personal best time by over half-a-second to achieve the required 'B' standard.
If South Africa manage to qualify as one of the 16 fastest 4 by 400 metres relay teams in the world, that would be another way for him to make it to Beijing, although he has said the 2012 Games in London are a more realistic target.
Sprint treble
After winning the Emmeloord 400 metres, Pistorius completed a sprint treble, claiming the 100 metres in 11.48 seconds, which was a long way off his personal best of 10.91 and possibly an indication of how much his break from training has cost him.
Taken as a whole, however, it was an encouraging return to the track for the "fastest man on no legs".
Pistorius was grateful that he could simply concentrate on his running again. Addressing the media, he said: "It’s a fantastic feeling to be running again.
'It's surreal'
"It's surreal to be seeing a red track, green grass and blue skies instead of the white walls of an institute or the dark wood of a courtroom."
In order to qualify for the Olympics, Pistorius will have to record qualifying marks against able-bodied competition. He has a busy schedule coming up next month, after getting in some much-needed training time, including running in Milan on 2 July, Rome on 11 July, and Lucerne on 16 July.
He says becoming physically fit is different from being competition fit and so he will run a lot of events in a short time so that he can make the mental jump back into racing.
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