Pistorius retains 400m title with style

"Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius on Saturday brought the Paralympic track and field programme to a close in style, winning his favoured event by a huge margin.

Victory for the 25-year-old South African never looked in any doubt from the gun, as he struck out on his own to lead coming into the last half-lap and was roared across the line by the packed 80,000-capacity Olympic Stadium in 46.68sec.


US athletes Blake Leeper took silver in 50.14sec with David Prince in bronze on 50.61.

Pistorius -- the only man in the field to run under 50sec for the one-lap sprint and the first double-amputee to compete at the Olympics last month -- won the 100m, 200m and 400m treble in Beijing four years ago.

But he lost both of the shorter sprint titles to Britain's Jonnie Peacock and Alan Oliveira of Brazil.

"It was very very special to me," Pistorius told Britain's Channel 4 television after the race. "It was the last event of my season, the last event of the London 2012 Games. Just so special.

"It was my 11th time I was able to come out on the track and I just wanted to end and give the crowd something they would appreciate and take home with them.

"I was very nervous before today's race. I was quite tired but the crowd just really kept me going."

Pistorius also won gold in the men's T42-46 4x100m relay for single and double below-the-knee amputees and upper limb amputees.

Source: MSN.Com

No comments:

Post a Comment