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Interview with new Laureus ambassador Oscar Pistorius
Transcript
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Interviewer: You are now a member of the Laureus Friends & Ambassadors Programme, can I ask you what that means to you?
Pistorius: Well it's a great honour for me to be a Friend & Ambassador for the Laureus Foundation. Being able to represent the Sport for Good Foundation and all the charities that are incorporated, it's a huge honour for me and you know just being amongst some of the other Laureus Ambassadors & Friends. I'm sure you know that I'm going to do my best to give back to the charities and the foundations that they aid and I'm looking forward to the next couple of years that I'll be getting involved in that.....My relationship with Laureus only started in 2008 when I was nominated for Breakthrough Athlete of the Year....I've had a lot of opportunities to be able to go out and view the projects when I've been away in Europe.
Interviewer: You obviously have a belief that people who achieve a reputation in sport should give something back?
Pistorius: Definitely. Over the last six, seven years that I've been doing athletics I've been involved in several landmine projects throughout Sub Saharan Africa and, you know, I think it's definitely a case where sportsmen that are in positions that we often find ourselves we do help those less fortunate than ourselves, and that's something that I've really enjoyed. I think I've often taken away far more from an experience like that than what we're able to give to people that are less fortunate than us. With over seventy odd [projects supported by Laureus]...I'm sure that we can have, you know, quite a lot of work cut out for us and I think I'm just going to have to find the ones that suit me best. Obviously with the disability side that's something that I have a big passion for, you know for amputees whether they've been maimed by war or by different types of genocides in Africa. That's something that I've been getting involved in, in the last couple of years and it's been a big thing for me to be involved in those projects.
Interviewer: Does the story of your life and your career make you even more determined to want to make a difference?
Pistorius: Yeah I think, I think you know the position that I've been in, I've been very fortunate although I've had a disability. I've had great support from my friends and family, growing up, but I think in my sports you know I have been very driven, I have been always wanting to improve my times, and I think that that definitely stands out with all the aspects in my life. You know when you grow up [you] develop different character traits and one of my strong ones I'd like to believe is that I'm determined in pretty much everything that I do and if I start something I like to finish it properly and, you know that's definitely goes all the way through to the work that I'd like to see done with less fortunate people and with under-privileged people that I come in contact with. I think for me, you know, the strong point is definitely with people that have [a] similar situation to [the one] which I'm in.
Interviewer: Reading your biography, 2004 seemed an amazing year. At the start of 2004 you seemed to be someone who competed in a variety of sports despite your disability and then suddenly within a few months you were winning a gold medal in [the Paralympic Games in Athens].
Pistorius: Yeah, it's quite crazy. For me it was really phenomenal, you know, growing up. I kind of participated in every sport that I came into contact with....it was really about being a youngster and enjoying sport. You often see kids and they think that if they're not good at a sport that they shouldn't just enjoy it. I think that's really the essence that's lost, you know, not about being the best footballer or the best tennis player, it's about just enjoying the game and getting involved and striving to be better. You know, every year just trying to make a couple more runs whether you're playing cricket or score a couple more goals or defend better if you're playing in the defence [in football].
But I think for me that was a big thing growing up and just trying many types of sport, and then in 2003 I had a right knee injury, [so in 2004] I started running and eight months later I was in the Paralympics Games in Athens and it was a huge shock for me.
I came back, I remember, I was 17 years old I had this blond curly hair and braces and I was kind of bowled over by the attention that I was getting. It was very strange for me because I'd participated in athletics for the same reasons I did in rugby and in water polo and for me it was just to have fun, and I got to this point after Athens [and] I realised OK, well, [now] I want to go and participate in one of the biggest sporting competitions in the world.
I've been able to travel overseas and abroad and represent my country and for me that was a big thing, but also it took a couple of weeks for me to just settle down and [to] realise what opportunities I had open to me and I could either go back to rugby and enjoy school sports in a team environment or I could work a lot harder and become a professional athlete and you know I was very lucky [in] a sense that I had a great coach who believed in me from the first day that I walked onto the track, I'm still with him and he's a crazy guy I mean he travels with me to a lot of the European countries but you know he's been a great sense of guidance and I've been very lucky with the friends and family that I've been blessed with, they've always given me great guidance, and I think those are the things that have definitely helped me in the last couple of years in taking this sport from just something that I did socially to something that I can do for life.
Interviewer: You've been pretty dominant in your sport almost from the moment you began, but could you tell me about the emotion and the excitement of winning those three gold medals in Beijing. It must have been phenomenal?
Pistorius: Beijing was for me a big set of goals that we went out for. I'd never participated in an international competition where I'd done more than two events so doing the 100, the 200 and the 400 [metres] was particularly demanding. I'd dropped the 100 metres a couple of years earlier because it wasn't my forte and my starts have always been slow so going into the competition my coach said well lets go for the hat trick.
I'd had the world records in all three but to train 100 and 400 metres is just vastly different for your body and so we started off the competition and we ran the 100 my signature [event]. I messed up. I stuffed the start up and that was a huge set back for me emotionally. The....next day we went into the final and the final went exactly the same way, I remember....we were about 30 metres into the race and I was about 6 ½ metres behind the guy who's in first position.
You can't hear anything, you feel like everything is kind of like silence, you've got tunnel vision, and I remember thinking to myself, it was like as if I'd paused the moment, and I just said ‘look here buddy this is the first race, you know, you've got three in mind here you're not going to stuff your goal up'....I'd worked really hard for that so, I don't know what happened, but the last 70 metres I kind of forgot about the first 30 and put down as much as I could and I ran the fastest last 70 for sure of my life and I managed to dip the American on the line.
After the 100 was behind me I really thought it would be a lot easier, the 200 my love and my event, and then I got pretty sick after that and by the time the 400 came it was the last event of the last evening of the Paralympics Olympic Games in Beijing and I remember lining up for that race and I was just so tired and you know I thought OK well if I can finish this off it's the third one, you know there isn't really an option to it, I have to just give it my best and they had one of the record attendants that night, I think there were like 92,000 people in the stadium, they had people standing on the stairs, and it was, it was crazy. I remember walking out and I was feeling pretty tired from the, from the two weeks of the emotional stress and whatever else, and I just thought ‘you know this is it, it doesn't get much better than this'.
Interviewer: It was a big, big story about your carbon fibre blades. Can you just explain a little bit about that?
Pistorius: I started running in 2002 with the carbon fibre prosthetic legs. They had been around since 1996 and they made different shapes and different variations [and] were made by all the top prosthetic companies as a high performance athletics foot. And never before did they have any issues regarding the prosthetics. So I started running on them in 2002 and in 2004 I went to the Athens Paralympic Games. In 2005 I ran in the South African Championships. And then in 2007 I got the opportunity to go round internationally on the able-bodied circuits. And then we started getting one or two complaints from the officials who say ‘look, we think your prosthetic legs provide you with an advantage, would you mind doing tests?'
So we went to the University of Cologne and we did two days of testing. We did like four tests and I left and about a month later we heard that I was at an unfair advantage with my prosthetic legs, that I'd used 26% less oxygen, than an able-bodied athlete. Something sounded like a mis-test because I mean....my prosthetic company had made over 17,000 pairs of prosthetics over the last 11 or 12 years so I was just a bit shocked by the whole thing.
So we sent a copy of their tests to a couple of scientists around the world from bio-mechanic, kinetic tests, scientists, to world renowned prosthetic scientists. It was ranging from a university in Spain and in Italy all the way through to Michigan Institution of Technology and Rice University in America. And the scientists all came back and they said ‘well, you know, these tests are fine but....they don't have anything to do with sprinting. A sprinter doesn't really use oxygen as a form of energy. So if you say you're 26% less oxygen...it just means you're breathing less. It doesn't mean you're using 26% less energy.
So we spoke to the IAAF and they said ‘if you want to re-do the tests you're more than welcome, but you must present it to the Court of Arbitration for Sport'....so we went to Rice University in Houston for about three or four weeks and we conducted the most crazy testing. We re-did all the IAAF's tests to max acceleration, deceleration......we presented to the Court of Arbitration in February 2008 and they came back and said ....'there's no way a prosthetic leg can provide an advantage'.
Interviewer; So as far as you're concerned that issue is now over.
Pistorius: Yeah. It's behind us.
Interviewer: You must be pleased.
Pistorius: Done and dusted.
Interviewer You clearly didn't want to have any advantage. You wanted to do it the right way?
Pistorius: The thing for me was to do it the right way, you know. And I never have any hard feelings towards IAAF or anyone, you know. I think they have a responsibility to test and to say, you know, these things are unfair. I mean, you could easily create a prosthetic leg that could provide an advantage but that's not at all what we were trying to do.
Interviewer: So when you were racing against non-disabled athletes, what were those other athletes saying to you when you raced against them?
Pistorius: It's never been a problem with them. They've always been really supportive and I've got a couple of mates who are really top 400 metre, 200 metre specialists from around the world and whenever I see them, you know, some of them come out to South Africa to train during the off months, and I mean, I've been very lucky to have very good relationships with most of them.
Interviewer: What about Paralympic athletes? You are bringing disabled sport and non-disabled sport together? Do they appreciate what you're doing?
Piastorius: I've got a deep respect for them and I'm sure they do for me. When we look at Paralympic Games it's very, very different to what a lot of people think. Although it is a competition for people with disabilities, it's a competition for people that have overcome their disabilities and are focusing on their abilities. They don't see it as me running in an able-bodied competition or disabled competition. They see me as trying to be a representative for the Paralympics and pushing the boundaries and pushing the way people perceive other people living with disabilities.
Interviewer: What are your hopes for London in 2012?
Pistorius: 2012 is a really big goal for me. I mean, coming to London not only for the Paralympics but hopefully for the Olympics as well will be a dream that I've been chasing for already the last five years. You know, I've come close. I'd say five years ago I was under a second from qualifying and then 2008 I was under a quarter of second to qualify for the Olympics. So for me, being a track and field specialist, I'd really like to have the opportunity to participate here in London in both....the Paralympics and the Olympic Games and I'm sure that's going to happen, you know. By next year I should be running at least at the qualification standard and then by 2012 definitely be pushing hard on the door of the qualification standard. So that's something that I'm looking forward to, definitely pushing it.
Interviewer: So will you concentrate on one event - the 400 metres - in the Olympic Games?
Pistorius: Yeah, I don't think there's a chance that I'd qualify for the 100 there but Ithe 200 is something that I've enjoyed and this year I actually ran the race just out of chance and I actually posted quite a quick time, but I don't think that's something that the door would open itself to either. So 400 for me is definitely the event to go for and it seems to be the event that I'm most suited on to qualify for the London Olympics. So I think it will be a 400 at the able-bodies....and I'm going to go for my four golds at the Paralympics and I'll be throwing in a relay there and I'm pretty confident about that one too.
Interviewer: Obviously the Commonwealth Games in Delhi are very interesting because they're inclusive. So the disabled and the non-disabled athletes all compete in the same event. Will you compete there?
Pistorius: I know they haven't opened all the events in Delhi for the Paralympic athletes. They will have a 100 metre race but I think it's going to be the arm amputee race. And the two, I know from my class we don't have a sprint event so I probably won't be there, but I'm going to go for my best to qualify anyway for the 400 able-bodied event there. And this year my starting time for the season was very quick, so I'm hoping that as I go into the next two months, that the times drop a little bit and I'm able to qualify for that.
Interviewer: We don't know what the qualifying times are going to be yet, presumably, for London, but are you reasonably confident that you can hit that?
Pistorius: I'm pretty confident that we can make 2012's London Olympic qualification times, and in 2008 I did a 46.2 [secs] and I needed to just go under 46 so, you know, it was under a quarter of a second that I missed that one [by], but even with the qualification times coming down, at least .1 of a second, I should be in good shape to make it. Luckily I've got years on my hands and I'm still quite young and I think the experience that I need to gain over the next years...as I learn to, whether it be rest in a better fashion or diet better or train smarter and recover quicker, these are all the kinds of things that are going to help me in order to bring my time down. But I think I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to make the qualification times.
Interviewer: To compete in the two Olympics in London would be a fantastic achievement, a terrific goal. Is that at the back of your mind every time you train and compete?
Pistorius: It's definitely something that's in my mind when I train, you know. We train in a group that has mixed Paralympic and pretty strong able-bodied sprinters and I think, you know, for me, it's never been a difference. You know, the 400 remains the 400, it's the same distance, it's the same type of tactic.
Interviewer: The World Cup is about to start in South Africa. Can you tell us about its importance?
Pistorius: When I left South Africa about two weeks ago to come for the European Circuit there was such a hype already. I mean, we've started with this Friday, football jersey to work, football jersey to school thing so all the little kids go to school on Fridays in their soccer jerseys. And we've got South African flags on all the side mirrors of the cars. People are talking and living football.....being South African and being able to host a competition like this is, is absolutely phenomenal and it's a great honour for every South African, you know. We've got such a diverse culture, such a diverse history and heritage that to be able to demonstrate that to the world as one of our strongest points I think is going to be an amazing opportunity for us. We've obviously had to go through a lot of hard work to prepare for the games and our football isn't great but I think it's really the passion that we've got behind the game....I'm sure people are going to go out to the games and have a phenomenal, phenomenal time and, and leave, you know, a lot richer, mentally and emotionally and spiritually from the experience.
Interviewer: Do you have a team that you support in and outside South Africa?
Pistorius: Yeah. I've got a, my team in South Africa is Orlando Pirates. It's a team from Jo'burg and there's a very big game every year, derby game, between them and a team called Kaiser Chiefs and it's pretty much the equivalent, I'd say, between Chelsea and Man United. It's like a really big, big game, you know.
And then spending a lot of time in Italy every year I've adopted a team called Lazio and, for those of you who know that, obviously I go through a lot of heartache. But growing up with my friend from South Africa - a guy called Dan - I spent time at his house and his parents are from Rome and they came from there, from pretty much very close to where the stadium is. They grew up supporting Lazio so it seemed like second nature and I think when I got wiser and a little bit older I realised that I wish I'd never started but I'm pretty loyal so I've stuck with them.
I'd say the team I support the most is Manchester United. Being here in Manchester every year for the Paralympic World Cup was one thing that kind of got me into it. I was a supporter of theirs, you know, growing up but not, I would say an avid supporter and then when I came out here in 2005 I got the opportunity to do a half time draw on the field and after that I was kind of really just intrigued by everything and I met Sir Bobby Charlton, I sat next to him at a dinner one night and then we had hosted the football team over in South Africa the following year and I had breakfast with a couple of the players. It was really, really cool. And since then I've been out to watch a couple of the games, and been to their training facilities and I had a training session with them one morning and I've been very lucky to live the dream that I think most kids around the world have.
You know, the way that South Africa can put together a show and the way that it can bring people together, regardless of race, or their ethnic backgrounds or socio-economic backgrounds, I think that's the most impressive thing about the sport and about the World Cup in South Africa.
Interviewer: Who do you think might do well in the World Cup?
Pistorius: You know, without showing a lack of confidence in my team, I mean I've got a lot of faith, you know, South Africa, I'm really hoping, does do something magical in the World Cup and we've all been told to choose a second team. So my second team that I'm going to support....will be Italy. I think my hopes there are not so great. So it's a very experienced team but I think the guys are struggling to play as a team at the moment. I think the team that will come out on top is probably going to be, for me, I think Argentina and I think Holland is going to pull together something pretty spectacular.
Interviewer: What is your hope and expectation for South Africa?
Pistorius: I think the South African team can go a lot further than I think a lot of people think they can. I think they're so used to playing on an individual basis but I think if each player plays as part of a team and plays a kind of relaxed game, slow the game down a bit, you know.....Our players have got a lot of speed, they've got a lot of passion. That can go a long way, you know. If you put hearts into the game we have seen countless times, you may be able to pull it off. I think for South Africans, just having the World Cup in South Africa is a huge accomplishment but I think, you know, the quarter-finals for us is a distinct possibility. So, you know, I'm backing my team.
Interviewer: Are you going to get to any of the games or are you on the circuit here?
Pistorius: I've got tickets to a couple of the games but whether I'm going to be able to attend or whether I'm going to have to give them on, pass them on, is a different story. My athletics comes first unfortunately. As much of an experience as I'm sure the World Cup is going to be, and as much as I'm sure I'll regret it, you know, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity for every South African, you know, every year I have to take seriously my athletics and just like that's a once in a lifetime, you know, 2010 athletic season is a once in a lifetime for me as well. So I've got to concentrate on what I'm doing here. But if I get even to go back for one night I'll go back and watch a game.
Interviewer: Would you like to send a message to Bafana Bafana?
Pistorius: First I'd like to say it's a great honour for me to be supporting such an amazing team. I think all of you guys have the most amazing passion. You know the hard work and dedication that you've showed in the last two years has really been commendable and I'm wishing you all the best from our side. I think that every one of you brings an important part into this team and that you're really going to get this opportunity in front of your own home country, in front of everybody in South Africa that supports you, to show off the talent that you have worked very hard and dedicated your lives to and I hope and I wish you all the best. And although I can't be there in person, I'm going to be behind you, I'm going to be winning over the European supporters on this side that aren't watching you and you know, I wish you guys all the best. I'm proud to be a supporter of yours and I hope that everything goes according to plan and that you guys show what you're made of.
