page_title: Oscar Pistorius
section_title: 2012 Summer Paralympics
hierarchical_section_title: Oscar Pistorius / Sporting career / 2012 Summer Paralympics
caption_attribution_description: English: Oscar Pistorius leading South Africa's Paralympic Team during the 2012 Summer Paralympics opening ceremony.
context_page_description: Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted murderer. In 2015 he was found guilty for the 2013 murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
  Both of Pistorius' feet had been amputated when he was 11 months old due to a congenital defect. He was born missing the outside of both feet along with both fibula leg bones. Pistorius ran in both non-disabled sprint events and in sprint events for below-knee amputees. He was the tenth athlete to compete at both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games.
  After becoming a Paralympic champion, Pistorius attempted to enter non-disabled international competitions, over persistent objections by the International Association of Athletics Federations and charges that his artificial limbs gave an unfair advantage. Pistorius would prevail in this legal dispute. At the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, Pistorius was the debut amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. At the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, Pistorius was the debut double-leg amputee participant.
  On 14 February 2013, Pistorius fatally shot his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home.
context_section_description: Pistorius also carried the flag at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics on 29 August. He entered the T44 classification men's 100 metres, 200 metres and 400 metres races, and the T42–T46 4 × 100 metres relay.
  In the 200-metre competition, Pistorius established a new T43 world record of 21.30 seconds in his heat on 1 September, but he was defeated in the final the next day by Alan Oliveira of Brazil. Pistorius took silver, and subsequently complained about the length of Oliveira's blades. He later apologised for the timing of his remarks, but not the content of his complaint. The IPC confirmed the length of Oliveira's blades were proportional to his body, with all the finalists measured before the race. The IPC also confirmed that Pistorius had raised the issue of blade length with it six weeks prior to the race. SASCOC issued a statement welcoming Pistorius' apology for his outburst, declared their full support for him and promised to assist him in discussions with the IPC about the issue of lengthened prosthetics after the conclusion of the Games. The IPC expressed willingness to engage with Pistorius about the issue. Australian runner Jack Swift and American runner Jerome Singleton  also expressed support for Pistorius's position.
  Pistorius won a team gold medal on 5 September, running the anchor leg as part of the South African 4 × 100 metres relay team setting a team world record time of 41.78 seconds. His Beijing Olympics 100-metre title was defended with a season's best time of 
  11.17 seconds but was succeeded by Great Britain's Jonnie Peacock. On 8 September, the last full day of competition, Pistorius won gold in the T44 400 metres with a time of 46.68 seconds, breaking the Paralympic record.
caption: Pistorius carrying the flag at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Paralympics
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