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Oscar Pistorius
Oscar Pistorius is fast becoming known as the "fastest thing on no legs"!  A double amputee, this 20-year-old is the world record holder in his category for the 100, 200 and 400 meters sprint.

Oscar was only 11 months old when his parents reluctantly agreed to have his limbs amputated below the knee.  Born without the fibula in both legs, Oscar says he never really knew anything different.  As a child he announced to his father that one day he would play in the Super 8 rugby event, this would characterize his future approach to life.

It was in January 2004 that Oscar shattered his right knee on the rugby field and was first introduced to athletics at the University of Pretoria.  At the age of seventeen, Oscar ran the 100m in an open competition at the Pilditch stadium in his hometown of Pretoria. After training for only two months he ran it in only 11.51 seconds, the world record standing at 12.22 seconds. This proved that Oscar could compete and very likely win anything he sets his mind to.  Just eight months later he was racing alongside Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure at the Athens Paralympics. Taking the athletics world by storm he took the bronze medal behind Shirley and Frasure in the 100m and later won gold in the 200m, breaking the world record with a time of 21.97 seconds becoming the first amputee ever to run the 200m in under 22 seconds. Oscar went home that day with four world records and the determination to do it again.

Since then, Oscar has broken his own world records nineteen times and is sixth in the Senior South African Championships for able-bodied athletes.  His determination to be considered as an athlete, who just so happens to run on Flex-Foot carbon-fiber blades from the knee down, means that Oscar plans to take part in the Olympics alongside able-bodied athletes.  He is still working on becoming the fastest sprinter in the world, and will never stop running at the Paralympics, which formed him into the competitive athlete he has become today. Oscar is training hard and looking forward to defending his 200m Paralympic title in Beijing 2008 and competing in the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing and the Olympic Games 2012 in London.