just right.’ Second, there was the alignment of the base of the blade, identifying exactly the correct angle for it to face, exactly where the maximum downward weight of the body would fall so as to exert optimum forward propulsion, maximizing use of the body’s energy. In addition to that, Van der Watt explained, it was important to get the weight and length of the blades just right, each in proportion to the runner’s strength and size.
But comfort was the key to everything, he said. ‘When you’re running you are hitting the ground with two and a half or three times your body weight. You measure that by the force applied on the ground, which bounces back as force on the limb, which then generates the forward running propulsion. If the fit of the prostheses is too loose or too tight, you lose speed and you gain pain.’
It was not until 2001 that they hit upon a pair that did not break and with which the boy was entirely comfortable. He was still playing rugby at school, using his normal everyday prostheses, but every other week he would go to a track to experiment with the home-made Cheetahs. At that stage, fourteen going on fifteen, his goal was not the Paralympics. Van der Watt could see he was fast, but he did not know how fast relative to potential competitors at the highest level of disabled sports. ‘To me he was just a kid, shy but a bit of a joker,who laughed a lot, played pranks, put staples into his legs to freak out people who did not know he wore prosthetics,’ Van der Watt said. ‘I was just doing my job for a nice Pretoria kid, with no plan or bigger goals. I was just helping the kid have a good life.’
He loved running on the blades but his chief obsession remained rugby, the sport you had to play at Pretoria Boys to impress your peers. But something had to give, and it did one day when he was playing against another school soon after he had turned sixteen. Two huge boys on the rival team tackled him at the same time. His artificial legs went flying, but he also hurt his knees badly. As he lay on the ground, a spectator goaded him, barking at him to get up and stop behaving like a girl. He did, and played the rest of the game, but after it was over the truth finally began to sink in that his future might not lie in rugby.
He went to see his trusted doctor, Gerry Versfeld, who prescribed a detailed three-month programme of rehabilitation, the last phase of which involved doing a lot of sprinting to build up the damaged knee. At the start of 2004 he began training at the University of Pretoria with an athletics coach by the name of Ampie Louw.
Louw was a big, bluff Afrikaner, then in his mid-forties, who would make it his chief task over the next ten years to help Pistorius make all the tiny, finely calibrated adjustments necessary to squeeze every possible millisecond out of his natural speed. The fruits of the new training became manifest within a month of the two starting out together, at the end of January 2004, when Pistorius found himself representing Pretoria Boys at a schools athletics event in Bloemfontein.
It was with a mixture of curiosity, bafflement and sniggers among the boys of the rival teams that he appeared on the track for the start of the 100 meters. The general supposition was that Pretoria Boys had chosen him for their team out of kindness. No one expected him to finish anything but last. But he won, the cheers he received providinghim with his first intoxicating taste of public glory. More was soon to come.
The final event of the day was the 4 × 100 meters relay. If Pretoria Boys won, they would lifted the schools trophy. Paul Anthony was not there. He was away with his wife on vacation. But he received a running commentary on the phone from a teacher who was present. ‘We were fourth of fifth going into the last, then Oscar got the baton,’ Anthony recalled. ‘Suddenly my colleague cried out, “Jesus Christ, he’s flying!” And, boy, did he! He tore through the
But comfort was the key to everything, he said. ‘When you’re running you are hitting the ground with two and a half or three times your body weight. You measure that by the force applied on the ground, which bounces back as force on the limb, which then generates the forward running propulsion. If the fit of the prostheses is too loose or too tight, you lose speed and you gain pain.’
It was not until 2001 that they hit upon a pair that did not break and with which the boy was entirely comfortable. He was still playing rugby at school, using his normal everyday prostheses, but every other week he would go to a track to experiment with the home-made Cheetahs. At that stage, fourteen going on fifteen, his goal was not the Paralympics. Van der Watt could see he was fast, but he did not know how fast relative to potential competitors at the highest level of disabled sports. ‘To me he was just a kid, shy but a bit of a joker,who laughed a lot, played pranks, put staples into his legs to freak out people who did not know he wore prosthetics,’ Van der Watt said. ‘I was just doing my job for a nice Pretoria kid, with no plan or bigger goals. I was just helping the kid have a good life.’
He loved running on the blades but his chief obsession remained rugby, the sport you had to play at Pretoria Boys to impress your peers. But something had to give, and it did one day when he was playing against another school soon after he had turned sixteen. Two huge boys on the rival team tackled him at the same time. His artificial legs went flying, but he also hurt his knees badly. As he lay on the ground, a spectator goaded him, barking at him to get up and stop behaving like a girl. He did, and played the rest of the game, but after it was over the truth finally began to sink in that his future might not lie in rugby.
He went to see his trusted doctor, Gerry Versfeld, who prescribed a detailed three-month programme of rehabilitation, the last phase of which involved doing a lot of sprinting to build up the damaged knee. At the start of 2004 he began training at the University of Pretoria with an athletics coach by the name of Ampie Louw.
Louw was a big, bluff Afrikaner, then in his mid-forties, who would make it his chief task over the next ten years to help Pistorius make all the tiny, finely calibrated adjustments necessary to squeeze every possible millisecond out of his natural speed. The fruits of the new training became manifest within a month of the two starting out together, at the end of January 2004, when Pistorius found himself representing Pretoria Boys at a schools athletics event in Bloemfontein.
It was with a mixture of curiosity, bafflement and sniggers among the boys of the rival teams that he appeared on the track for the start of the 100 meters. The general supposition was that Pretoria Boys had chosen him for their team out of kindness. No one expected him to finish anything but last. But he won, the cheers he received providinghim with his first intoxicating taste of public glory. More was soon to come.
The final event of the day was the 4 × 100 meters relay. If Pretoria Boys won, they would lifted the schools trophy. Paul Anthony was not there. He was away with his wife on vacation. But he received a running commentary on the phone from a teacher who was present. ‘We were fourth of fifth going into the last, then Oscar got the baton,’ Anthony recalled. ‘Suddenly my colleague cried out, “Jesus Christ, he’s flying!” And, boy, did he! He tore through the
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