Pistorius must beat Olympic time again

Oscar Pistorius must run another 400-metre “A” qualifying time in the three months before the London Olympics to make history as the first amputee athlete to run at an able-bodied games, South Africa’s Olympic Committee said last night.

Clarifying its 2012 qualifying criteria, the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee said that the double-amputee athlete had not yet qualified despite running inside the “A” time in July – which earned Pistorius an historic place at the world championships in Daegu, South Korea.

SASCOC chief executive Tubby Reddy said: “Oscar would have to satisfy the A qualifying criteria, as is for able-bodied athletes, within the stipulated time period, which I think is within three months of the games.”

“Many people have said he has run that time already, however he has not qualified,” Reddy added.

Pistorius ran a personal best 45.07 seconds on his carbon fibre blades at a small meeting this year in northern Italy, the only time he has gone under the 45.25-second qualifying mark for the London games.

He clocked 45.39 in the 400 heats at the worlds in Daegu and then 46.19 to finish last in his semi-final.

While not referring directly to Pistorius, SASCOC president Gideon Sam said South Africa did not want to take any “flash in the pan” athletes to the Olympics.

Sam said: “The criteria works like this: to avoid a situation of a flash in the pan, you make the time, but you have to show evidence that again you can make that time.”

Sam added that only a handful of South African rowers, a canoeist and the country’s women’s football team were already certain of competing in London.

“There’s opportunities up to July next year for all the other athletes. And there will be more of them,” Sam said, adding that South Africa’s Olympic body had tightened its criteria after several swimmers made qualifying times just once before the 2000 Sydney Olympics and then put in disappointing performances at the games. “We have to stick to our guns,” he said.