Golden team

PA Wire/Press Association Images

The South Africa team of, from left, Zivan Smith, Samkelo Radebe, Arnu Fourie and Oscar Pistorius celebrate winning gold in a world record time after the Mens 4x100m  T42-T46 final at the Olympic Stadium, London, on Wednesday, September 5, 2012.

London - The past two days have been dark ones for Oscar Pistorius, who said on Wednesday night that he had been “down” after the backlash from his comments when he lost in the 200m on Sunday.

On Wednesday night he walked tall yet again as the Olympic Stadium rose as one to embrace the man and his South African team after they won gold and broke the world record in the 4x100m.

He and his three team-mates – Samkelo Radebe, Zivan Smith and Arnu Fourie – smashed their own world record of 42.50secs set in Germiston, of all places, with a new time of 41.78secs.

Pistorius looked a lot calmer after his race late on Wednesday night than he had earlier in the evening. He ran hard on the track he had left in a disappointed fury like a man with a point to prove. He won his 100m heat in 11.18 seconds, channelling all the frustration of Sunday night’s loss and ill-timed but well-meant words. The final of that race is tonight.

Behind the scenes, the battle over what was fair and unfair when it came to the specifications of the prosthetic blades used by amputee runners continued unabated.

Concerns

Pistorius himself had sought to diffuse the situation when he apologised for the timing of his outburst on the issue of the length of blades, made directly after his loss to Alan Oliveira, the Brazilian, in the 200m final on Sunday night.

Sascoc said earlier this week it would be taking up the matter on behalf of Pistorius and on Wednesday sent a letter to the International Paralympic Committee which asked, among other things, for it to investigate whether athletes in the T43-T44 (single- and double-leg amputee) categories had been changing their blades in between events, which is against the rules.

“Concerns were also raised over performances and results of athletes prior to the Games with different sets of competition prosthesis used prior to and at this event,” said Sascoc CEO, Tubby Reddy, in a statement.

“[Sascoc] asked the IPC to urgently investigate allegations that a number of T43 athletes were running on different-sized prosthesis for semi-finals and finals and different events,” said IPC director of communications, Craig Spence, who said that the IPC’s investigation had consisted of going to the coaches of the athletes and asking them.

He admitted that they had no independent evidence whether the athletes might have changed the length of their blades between races as they had only measured the heights of the athletes in the call-room before Sunday’s 200m final.

“We met the coaches of the athletes involved and the look of shock on their faces was very telling.

“It answered the question straight away. It is extremely difficult to do and there is no evidence that athletes are using different sized blades,” Spence said.

Pistorius, however, has received support from other athletes, including Jerome Singleton, the American single-leg amputee, who said that the issue was one that had been a problem for a long time.

“The formula doesn’t seem right. It needs to be re-evaluated,” Singleton said.