Pistorius still off Delhi spot despite record

Triple Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius set a new world disability record for the 400m on Saturday, but remained outside the cut for a berth as an able-bodied athlete at October’s Commonwealth Games.

In a race against other amputees at the Diamond League meeting in Crystal Palace, the 23-year-old Pistorius won in 47.04sec, smashing his own record of 47.49sec set in 2008 when he won Paralympic gold in the Beijing Games.

He also ran 46.93sec in an able-bodied 400m race on Friday, finishing seventh in the field, but that time was not eligible for the record as the race had not been ratified by the International Paralympic Committee.

Both times were well short of his lifetime best in the 400m of 46.02sec achieved last month in Italy, in another unratified race, and also some distance off the 45.95sec standard set by his country’s athletics federation for Commonwealth qualification.

“A world record is always a good thing to finish the season off on,” said Pistorius, known as “Blade Runner” because of the artificial legs he runs on.

“I learned a lot from Friday’s race where the rainy conditions were not what I am used to,” he added. “The crowd was phenomenal.”

South Africa name their squad for the Commonwealth Games later this month, and Pistorius, who runs on springy, lightweight, J-shaped limbs called “Cheetahs”, is the second fastest South African in the current rankings.

The Swiss-based Court of Arbitration for Sport in May last year lifted a ban on Pistorius competing in able-bodied track competitions.

The ban had been imposed by the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF), which said Pistorius’s limbs gave him an unfair advantage.

Pistorius missed out on a place on the South African able-bodied team at the Beijing Olympics, but has stated his ambition to qualify for the 2012 Games in London.