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MANCHESTER, England — Oscar Pistorius returned to competition for the first time since breaking ribs in a boating accident, winning the 100 and 400 meters at the Paralympic World Cup on Sunday.
Even so, the 22-year-old double amputee from South Africa, who runs on prosthetics attached to his lower legs, was disappointed with his performance in the 400 at Manchester Arena.
"Let's be honest, it was shocking. It was the worst time I've run in about three and a half years," he said of his time of 50.28 seconds. "But I know I wasn't running hard and I know I can run better."
Pistorius, who needed to win a ruling at the Court of Arbitration for Sport last year to show that his carbon fiber prosthetics don't give him an advantage, is striving to run against the top athletes at the World Championships in Berlin Aug. 15-23. He needs to run under 46 seconds to qualify.
"I've got a lot of hard work to do but I've no doubt that I'm going to run a personal best this year," Pistorius said. "I'm sure I'll come close if I don't do it. It is a hard goal, but that's what we're in the sport for, to run as hard as we can and to push ourselves."
Pistorius produced a late surge to overtake Jerome Singleton and win the 100 in 11.13 seconds. The American, who finished behind Pistorius in the Paralympics in Beijing last year, beat the South African out of the blocks but couldn't hold him off at the end, finishing second by 0.03.
Beth Haller, Ph.D., is Co-Director of the Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment (www.gadim.org). A former print journalist, she is a member of the Advisory Board for the National Center on Disability and Journalism (https://ncdj.org/). Haller is Professor Emerita in the Department of Mass Communication at Towson University in Maryland, USA. Haller is co-editor of the 2020 "Routledge Companion to Disability and Media" (with Gerard Goggin of University of Sydney & Katie Ellis of Curtin University, Australia). She is author of "Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media" (Advocado Press, 2010) and the author/editor of Byline of Hope: Collected Newspaper and Magazine Writing of Helen Keller (Advocado Press, 2015). She has been researching disability representation in mass media for 30+ years. She is adjunct faculty in the Disability Studies programs at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the University of Texas-Arlington.
From The AP:
