It would not be a disaster for South African double amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius if he did not qualify for the IAAF World Championships in Daegu, South Korea next month, his coach, Ampie Louw, said on Thursday.
Pistorius will line-up in the men's 400 metres event at the Diamond League meeting in Paris, France on Friday with only 12 days left to reach the qualifying time of 45.25 seconds.
Louw said he would be pleased if his charge clocked 45.50 in the French capital.
“I will help him to reach his goal and there are still a few races to qualify for the world championships,” Louw said.
“He will try and reach that (qualifying time) and will go out as hard as he can on Friday. “Realistically, however, we are looking at a time of 45.50.”
The 24-year-old set a personal best time of 45.61 at his first meeting of the season in Pretoria in March.
Louw said they were looking at the bigger picture, with their sights set on the 2012 London Olympic Games.
Improving on his personal best was part of the plan for Pistorius to achieve his childhood dream of competing against able bodied athletes at the quadrennial global showpiece.
Louw said if Pistorius did not qualify for the world championships in the flat 400m, the possibility of participating in the 4x400m relay still existed.
Pistorius was part of the Gauteng North relay team, which also included LJ van Zyl, the world's top ranked 400m hurdler, at the SA championships in Durban in April, which missed out on the world championship qualifying time by 0.73 seconds.
“I believe it would be stupid if they (Athletics South Africa) did not send a relay team to Daegu,” said Louw.
Louw felt if the top four 400m athletes in the country were to work together, they would have a fighting chance of qualifying the global championships.
Meanwhile, Olympic long jump silver medallist Khotso Mokoena hopes to regain his status as South Africa's top jumper in his specialist event in Paris.
World junior champion Luvo Manyonga unseated Mokoena with a season's best jump of 8.29m, reaching the A qualifying standard, at a meeting in Finland last week.
Mokoena needs to improve by one centimetre on the season's best 8.19m he set in Eugene, Oregon last month to secure his place in the team for the world championships.
African women's javelin throw record holder Sunette Viljoen will look to improve further in Paris in her build-up to Daegu. Viljoen qualified for the world championships with a 61.72m heave at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava in May.
World 800m champion Caster Semenya has been inconsistent in the women's two-lap race this season, and she will hope to bounce back in Paris after a fifth-place finish at international meeting in Reims, France on Tuesday.
Semenya fell nearly three seconds short of her season's best, which she set in Oslo in June when she clocked a time of 1:58.61.
Ruben Ramolefi, the South African record holder in the 3 000m steeplechase, is yet to reach his early season form, which saw him clocking 8:14.06 at the national championships in Durban in April, and he will look to improve on his European campaign in Paris.
Meanwhile, SA javelin throw champion Robert Oosthuizen will be the only South African competing at the Diamond League meeting in Birmingham, England on Sunday.
Oosthuizen has already reached the podium three times in the Diamond League series this season with two second place finishes and one third place.
The 24-year-old is tied second in the overall javelin standings with four other athletes on five points. Andreas Thorkildsen of Norway leads the series with six points. – Sapa