Oscar battles on despite ban
St Petersburg - Double amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius is resigned to missing this summer's Beijing Olympics but remains confident he will overturn an international ban and compete in London in four years time.
The 21-year-old South African was told last month by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) that he could not compete in their events because the artificial legs he uses gives him an unfair advantage.
The decision excluding him and other disabled athletes who use such devices from the Olympics followed a scientific investigation into his springy, blade-like prosthetics carried out by a German institution last November.
That research concluded that the devices gave him a clear competitive edge over such athletes as he used 25% less energy expenditure once he had reached top speed.
Pistorius and his agent Peet van Zyl, however, have refused to accept the IAAF decision and have hired a high-powered New York-based legal team to take an appeal to the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Appeal
"We were quite shocked and surprised when the results came out so we took the results and gave them to several institutes in America and they came back to us and said that they don't necessarily agree with the tests," said Pistorius who was in St Petersburg for the Laureus World Sports Awards in which he was nominated in the Breakthrough of the Year category.
"We launched our appeal through our law firm last week on Wednesday and the IAAF now have 10 days to submit any information that they want to submit and we will be taking it from there.
"It's been a rough couple of weeks but it's important to fight it because it has affected tens of thousands of amputee athletes all around the world who are competing in college meets that are affiliated with the IAAF.
"It's very important for the future of disabled-bodied sports that it gets sorted out."
Pistorius, who as an 11-month-old baby had both of his legs amputated below the knee due to a congenital disorder, has been dubbed "Blade Runner" due to the specially adapted carbon fibre blades that have seen him win paralympic titles and challenge the times set by top-level able-bodied athletes.
