"Just One of the Challenges of 21st-Century Life": Oscar Pistorius in the Court of Arbitration for Sport

Abstract

First paragraph: On May 16th 2008, the Court of Arbitration for Sport handed down its decision in Oscar Pistorius v The International Association of Athletics Federations. Pistorius is a class-43 (double amputee) athlete from South Africa, born in November 1986. His legs were amputated below the knees when he was 11 months old because he had been born without fibulas (a lower-leg bone which supports about 15% of an adult’s body weight). He started running at the beginning 2004 to assist his rehabilitation from a serious rugby injury, but such was his progress in the discipline that he competed in the September 2004 paralympics, using prosthetic titanium lower legs manufactured by a company in Iceland. He came first in the 200m. At the 2006 Athletics World Championships he won gold medals in the 100, 200 and 400m events and he remains the world record holder at all those distances for class-43 athletes. Pistorius asked to be considered for selection in South Africa’s 2008 Olympic squad in the 400m and in the 4 x 400m relay, using his prostheses but in all other respects running on equal terms against the other participants.