Since he was a mere 11 months old, Oscar Pistorious has worn prosthetic legs. Born without bones in either of his lower legs, his parents consulted over a dozen surgeons before making the difficult decision to amputate just below both knees.

But growing up a double amputee didn’t stop Pistorious from pursuing sports with a passion. In fact, at 17, he won the Sprint Gold Medal at the 2004 Paralympics in Athens.

“I don’t see myself as disabled,” Pistorious, who once also played rugby and water polo, told The New York Times. “There’s nothing I can’t do that able-bodied athletes can do.”

The Fastest Man on No Legs Documentary
These are only a few of the reasons why, at only 21 years old, Pistorious makes for interesting cinema and why BBC America has released a documentary, The Fastest Man on No Legs, which will focus on the athlete people refer to as “Blade Runner.” The nickname is a reference to the state-of-the-art, carbon fiber j-shaped blades known as Cheetahs that Pistorious runs with.

The film is part of a series designed to “take an in-depth, honest, and often surprising look at some of the body image issues that people are struggling to overcome in their search for happiness,” according to BBC America’s website. "The Fastest Man on No Legs charts the courageous plight of the double amputee from South Africa, as he chases his dream to compete in the 2008 Olympics in China.”

The film will focus specifically on what Pistorious has gone through as he challenges a 2007 decision by the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federation) that banned the use of technical aids in sprinting.

Hitting a Roadblock with the I.A.A.F.
“With all due respect, we cannot accept something that provides advantages,” said Elio Locatelli of Italy, the director of development for the I.A.A.F., urging Pistorius to concentrate on the Paralympics that followed the Olympics in Beijing. “It affects the purity of sport. Next will be another device where people can fly with something on their back.”

Viewers will get a first-hand understanding of the grueling tests and heartbreaking news that dashed one part of Oscar’s lofty ambitions. And many will be left with questions about the I.A.A.F.’s motives for the decision. Was it really the issue of an unfair advantage that was the genesis of the decision?

Or, as some Pistorious fans claim, was it the image that the Olympics puts forth that was really at stake? Was the I.A.A.F. afraid of being faced with questions about what exactly it means when a person with physical disabilities races against someone without them and is triumphant?

By the time any of these questions are answered, if they ever are, Pistorius’ lithe, muscle-laden silhouette may have already achieved status as one of the most iconic images in sports history to date. And the lines between able bodied and disabled will surely have been blurred a little further because of him.

“These have always been my legs,” Pistorious pointed out in a New York Times interview. “I train harder than other guys, eat better, sleep better and wake up thinking about athletics. I think that’s probably why I’m a bit of an exception.”

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