Born 22 November 1986 is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted murderer. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old owing to a congenital defect; he was born missing the outside of both feet and both fibulae. Pistorius ran in both nondisabled sprint events and in sprint events for below-knee amputees. He was the 10th athlete to compete at both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games.
Fibular hemimelia is a congenital absence of the fibula, in his case in both legs. When he was 11 months old, both of his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles. He attended Constantia Kloof Primary School and Pretoria Boys High School, where he played rugby union in the school’s third XV team. He played water polo and tennis at provincial level between the ages of 11 and 13. In addition, Pistorius took part in club Olympic wrestling, and trained at Jannie Brooks’s garage gym in Pretoria. Brooks remarked that it took six months before he noticed that Pistorius “had no legs”, but nonetheless was able to do many exercises, including “boxing, skipping, and doing press-ups”.
After a serious rugby knee injury in June 2003, he was introduced to running in January 2004 while undergoing rehabilitation at the University of Pretoria’s High Performance Centre with coach Ampie Louw, and “never looked back”. His first racing blades were fitted by South African prosthetist Francois van der Watt. Because he was unable to find suitable running blades in Pretoria, Van der Watt ordered the pair to be made by a local engineer. However, as these quickly broke, Van der Watt referred Pistorius to American prosthetist and Paralympic sprinter Brian Frasure to be fitted for blades by Icelandic company Össur.
He was ultimately sentenced to 13 years in prison for the murder of Reeva Steenkamp. The double-amputee sprinter, 36, who was known as the “Blade Runner” for his carbon fiber prosthetic legs, fired at Reeva Steenkamp four times through a locked bathroom door at his home in Pretoria in the early hours of Valentine’s Day in 2013. A promising model and law graduate, she was 29.
The Steenkamp family’s lawyer, Tania Koen, said in a statement after the parole board’s decision: “While we welcome today’s decision, today is not a cause for celebration. We miss Reeva terribly and will do so for the rest of our lives. We believe in justice and hope that it continues to prevail.”
