Blade Runner

Wired 15.03: Blade Runner

His legs were amputated when he was a year old. Now Oscar Pistorius is on track to make the South African Olympic team. Is he an engineering marvel — or just one hell of a sprinter?

By Josh McHugh

I first hear it as I’m coming out of a turn on the track at

the University of Pretoria’s High Performance Centre. It’s 100 meters

to the finish line. I’m pumping my legs as fast as I can when a sort of

snick snick snick snick starts getting louder, like I’m being

chased by a giant pair of scissors. At 50 meters to go, the sound is at

my left shoulder, and then Oscar Pistorius blows past me; the snick snick

fades away ahead. By the time I cross the finish line, the South

African sprinter has already turned around and is catching his breath,

leaning forward, hands on his knees.

He ran 200 meters. I ran only 150; he spotted me the difference.

Still, his win comes as no surprise. Two years ago Pistorius ran the

200 in 21.34 seconds, matching the women’s world record time set by

Florence Griffith Joyner in 1988 and missing the qualifying time for

the 2008 Olympics by just three-quarters of a second.

“Nice running, bru,” Pistorius says in his Afrikaans-tinged lilt.

Then he turns his attention to a pair of sprinters from the women’s

track team, stretching before their workout. He suggests they upgrade

to more streamlined running gear: bikinis. “Naughty!” one of them

squeals, tousling his frosted curly hair.

Pistorius and I grab bottles of water, and then he trots to the

infield. He sits, undoes a couple of straps, and tosses his legs onto

the grass. The Cheetahs, elegant, swooping lengths of carbon-fiber

composite, are better at running than walking.

I’m not the only runner who has learned to dread the

scissoring sound of Oscar Pistorius. Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure,

both of whom are below-the-knee single amputees, were the world’s top

two runners going into the Athens Paralympics in 2004. Shirley finished

in 22.67 seconds, breaking Frasure’s world record for a one-legged

amputee. But they were racing for silver. Three strides ahead,

Pistorius had demolished them both, clocking a time of 21.97.

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