Articles about this Olympic Games

20 12 The story of Pistorius, an athlete of London Olympic Games.

Oscar pistorius: The fastest legless man.

Born without fibula and ankle bones, 1 1 month amputated below the knee, 17 months began to learn to walk with artificial limbs, 16 years old practiced track and field, 17 years old put on the famous "cheetah" sports prosthesis, 18 years old broke his legs and legs.

August 5th, the third competition day of track and field events in London Olympic Games. The sky above the "Olympic Stadium" is still covered with haze, but the bad weather can't stop people's enthusiasm-oscar pistorius in oscar pistorius, South Africa has appeared.

This is the second group match of the men's 400m semi-final. At the moment the starting gun rang, eight athletes on the runway shot like arrows, "Oscar, Oscar!" " All the people in the stands shouted in unison. Everyone began to accelerate, and Pistorius flapped his arm vigorously and tried his best to improve the running frequency. The black "J"-shaped "cheetah" has long been integrated with his body. Like all races, he started to accelerate in the middle, crossed the last corner and ran to the finish line.

But this time, unlike usual, he fell behind and was left behind by everyone, and finally reached the finish line. James of Grenada, the new champion of Daegu World Championships, won the first place in the group, setting a personal best time of 44.59 seconds this season. But the audience still gave Oscar thunderous applause, and Oscar missed the final. He made a slight bow and then waved.

This is the first time in the history of the Olympic Games1KLOC-0/6 that disabled athletes with amputated legs have participated in the track and field competition. Since the group match on August 4th, he has become the most sought after figure in the Olympic Stadium. No matter which country's audience will cheer for him, his opponents are proud to compete with him on the track, and he is the gathering place of various TV stations and print media under the track. Because there are too many journalists who follow Oscar, in order to meet the needs of journalists who can't squeeze into the front row, the organizer even placed a microphone in the mixed interview area to broadcast every word of Oscar at the first time.

"This is a strange phenomenon. No athlete is more concerned than the champion. " Some media commented that the story of Oscar itself has gone far beyond the meaning of a title or a record. This South African boy who was amputated at the age of 1 1 month exceeded the limits of people's imagination with his amazing sports talent. A "flying man" without legs galloped on the track of the Olympic Games and competed with the best healthy athletes in the world.

"If the goal is easy to achieve, I won't be so excited. After so many hardships, I can really feel excited. For me, I like to challenge people's traditional ideas. When people see a disabled person, they always focus on part of his or her disability. I want to subvert their ideas. There are always many obstacles on the road to success. The only difference between a great athlete and an excellent athlete is whether you can bypass it, overcome it and subvert it. " In the image short film Beyong Reason, which was shot for its sponsor oakley, he explained his sports concept in this way.

Go to The way of the Olympic Games.

Oscar pistorius left the deepest impression on the public, that is, he galloped on the track in his famous black "J"-shaped carbon fiber prostheses. His speed is incredible, and those prosthetic limbs that look like cheetahs add a bit of high-tech flavor like "future soldiers" to him. According to his achievements and image, the media likes to give him various nicknames, such as "the fastest legless man" or "oscar pistorius" as more people know.

In the eyes of the media and advertisers, this symbolic image is undoubtedly a way to maximize the individual characteristics of athletes, but for Oscar himself, these may not fully reflect all his ambitions as an athlete-"I hope to stand in the most intense arena in the world and compete with the best athletes, regardless of whether these people are healthy or disabled."

The The way of the Olympic Games of the Oscars began five years ago. At that time, as an athlete in T33 group (editor's note: double leg amputation group), he was invincible in men's 100m, 200m and 400m, and even entered a higher level of T44 group (editor's note: single leg amputation group), and easily set new world records in three events. Less than 20 years old, he began to participate in the track and field competitions of healthy people, and moved towards the highest dream of all athletes-the Olympic Games.

Oscar is not the first disabled athlete in Olympic history. 1984 A wheelchair player appeared on the shooting range in the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Four years ago in Beijing, there was a female player Padika with a broken forearm on the Polish table tennis team. Even in South Africa, Oscar's native country, he is not the first disabled athlete to participate in the Olympic Games. There was an athlete wearing a prosthetic leg in the South African swimming team that participated in the Beijing Olympic Games.

However, when it was Oscar's turn, everything became not so simple. Sports prosthesis once became the biggest obstacle to OSCO's Olympic dream.

Perhaps because of the incredible speed, people once attributed Oscar's success to his running leg called "Cheetah". In 2007, IAAF allocated 50,000 dollars for special research, and entrusted bruggeman, a famous professor from Cologne University, to study whether Cheetah could help Pistorius gain more advantages than normal people, which led to new unfairness on the runway.

During the two-day test, Professor bruggeman used 12 high-speed camera, 3D scanner and various other scientific analysis instruments to deeply analyze Oscar's running process and his prosthetic leg. The prosthetic leg cost 15000, and it was made of all carbon fiber and some titanium alloys. The test results show that cheetah can save more energy for users when sprinting, whether it is the design appearance of slightly leaning forward or the use of ultra-light carbon fiber materials. According to this report, IAAF once decided to terminate Oscar's qualification for normal sprint.

Battle of the blade

He appealed Oscar's decision, and Oscar refused to accept the arbitration of IAAF. He hired Manhattan lawyer Jeffrey Kessler as his representative. Kessler is very famous in American sports. He once negotiated wage agreements with the league on behalf of NFL and NBA players. Experienced, he recruited a team of experts headed by prosthetic movement theorists like Hugh Hull to reevaluate the movement principle of cheetahs.

"The starting point of Brugman's argument is wrong. They obviously don't understand the way disabled athletes exercise. " Hull commented. This expert in sports theory and biochemical machinery from MIT is also a fan of Oscar. He likes climbing mountains and all kinds of adventures. He was amputated in a mountaineering accident when he was young, and later devoted himself to the development of high-tech prosthetic technology.

"In the sprint competition, the fastest athletes in the world are often the ones who land the heaviest, so they can get a greater response. On the other hand, their feet usually touch the ground for only a tenth of a second or less when running. Oscar can't do this. His cheetahs tend to touch the ground longer. To make up for it, he must run faster than any other world-class sprinter. His hips are stronger than others, just like a super engine. " Hull said, "This is not so much an extra push as it is still at a disadvantage."

"Although the use of' Cheetah' can improve the ground feedback force from 20% of the general prosthesis to nearly 100%, the feedback force of ordinary people touching the ground during exercise is still much higher than 100%, which can probably reach 250% to 300%." Zhang, a registered prosthetic manufacturer of Finnish company in Shanghai, explained the flexibility and feedback of cheetah movement. "As far as the current technology is concerned, we don't think that the future value will reach the athletic ability that human biological legs can achieve."

"In fact, at present, most sprinters (including the mobilization of the Paralympic Games in China) wear cheetahs." Zhang told us that in his view, "Cheetah" is not a high-tech equipment. "Oscar wore a cheetah when he was about 16 or 17 years old. From 10 years ago to now, the design of this equipment has not been greatly improved. "

"The difference between prosthetic limbs and biological legs is that they have no nerves, muscles, ligaments and tendons, and they cannot interact with the brain during exercise. Walking with artificial limbs is like walking on a soft mattress. There is not much reaction when stepping on it, so it will be a problem for a company commander to walk for a long time. In contrast,' Cheetah' is made of carbon fiber, which has good elasticity and can increase the reaction force when running and jumping, but due to the appearance problem of the design, this product is only suitable for sprinting. " Zhang explained how the cheetah works. "In fact, the cheetah is extremely difficult to control, and it will feel like walking on stilts when you just use it."

Kessler's team of experts finally reached an opposite argument with bruggeman, and successfully lifted the IAAF ban on Oscar, but it still kept him out of the Beijing Olympic Games. But at the Beijing Paralympic Games, Oscar finally showed his strength to the world with three T44 sprint gold medals.

"To tell the truth, apart from the problem of artificial limbs, Oscar really belongs to the kind of athletes with rare talents. His achievements in the field of sprint are unparalleled, which makes him the only disabled athlete who can participate in the Olympic Games, and it is unlikely that any disabled athlete will achieve his achievements in the future. His success is unrepeatable. " Peter Weiyander, a professor of motion theory and biomechanics from Southern Health Science and Technology College in Dallas, summed us up.

"Put your leg up."

"I have never felt different from others, which may be related to my family education. From small to large, my mother treats every child in the family equally. " Oscar recalled to reporters that every morning when she went out to school, her mother, as a school counselor, would always point to her younger brother Carl and say, put on your shoes, and then go back and say to him, and you, put on your legs.

Oscar, 26, was born in South Africa. He is the second child in the family. He once told a visiting The New York Times reporter that his family was ordinary and his parents were not very rich. But generally speaking, the Pistorius family is an aristocratic family in South Africa. Their ancestors came from Switzerland and moved to South Africa five generations ago. Many branches of this family later became extremely rich in South Africa.

"If it is unfortunate to be born disabled, then fortunately, in such a country with a huge gap between the rich and the poor, he was born at least on the right side-if it is the opposite, it is hard to imagine what the future of this child will be like." A reporter from The New York Times later commented.

Because there were no fibula and ankle bones at birth, Oscar had to remove the part below the knee when he was 1 1 month old, and 17 month old began to learn to walk with artificial limbs. Although he has never tried to walk on his legs, he is still an energetic boy. He practiced football, water polo, boxing and tennis since childhood, and climbed trees with his brother Carl to participate in motorcycle races. If anyone dares to laugh at his prosthetic leg, he is waiting to kick it to the ground.

Jamie Brooks, a boxing coach in Oscar's high school, recalled how they met: "He came with other children and wanted to train. It took me six months to realize that he had no lower limbs. "

Oscar/kloc-started practicing track and field at the age of 0/6. "But at that time, I didn't even know what the Paralympic Games were." He recalled this. 17 years old, after wearing the famous "Cheetah" sports prosthesis, he conquered various competitions and world records at a whirlwind speed on the track. In 2004, she transformed into a professional athlete, and broke the 200m world records of T33 (double leg amputation) and T44 (single leg amputation) in just three weeks. Two months later, he ran 100 meters 1 1 sec, which changed the original 1. "A five-speed engine without second gear." His coach described him like this.

After Athens in 2004, this engine continued to detonate the Bird's Nest at the Beijing Paralympic Games. Won the Olympic gold medal in T44 men's 65,438+000m, 200m and 400m. In Beijing, besides Phelps and Bolt, he is another sports star who has been entangled by the media the most.

Compared with the boy with blond curly hair and blue eyes who blushed when he was hugged by fans four years ago, Oscar now seems to be no longer astringent, and his face is beginning to become rough and severe, partly because of the accident in 2008. On that occasion, a speedboat he was driving crashed into a pier in the south of Johannesburg. His face and body hit the steering wheel, and two ribs, chin and eye socket were injured. The doctor had to sew 172 stitches on his face.

"The accident had a great influence on me. This made me rethink my life and sports life. " Having said that, he doesn't seem to have stopped pursuing speed and adventure. Earlier this year, he rode a mountain bike through a meadow and tripped over a fence. When he got up, he found his prosthetic leg hanging on the high barbed wire and swaying in the wind. "Fortunately, it is not a real leg, so the prosthetic leg still has an advantage." He said half jokingly.

"This is his essence, and there is really no way." His agent, Peter van Zell, had to comment like this.

Apart from exciting speed sports activities, many of Oscar's hobbies are related to his poor sleep quality. Because he can't sleep well, he often walks alone in new york in the middle of the night and comes to the Puerto Rican tattoo shop in SOHO District from home to tattoo himself. I practiced shooting at a shooting range not far from home all night. "That's the way to calm me down." He told reporters like this. Besides, cooking and reading can also produce the same effect. He has a wide range of reading interests, from Madoff scandal to football and racing, but most of them are biographical books, such as Mandela, Dylan, Beckham, salvador dali and Steve Jobs.

B= Bund Pictorial

P= oscar pistorius.

B: When did you know that you could compete in the men's 400m and 4x400m at the London Olympics? We know you've been longing for this moment for a long time. What's your first reaction when it really happens?

P: Apart from being excited, of course I'm honored. I think this is a reward for my hard training and determined efforts over the years. When this moment really happens, I think all the hard work is worth it. Unfortunately, I have been preparing for the Olympics and Paralympics. In fact, I don't have time to celebrate this rare opportunity. Now I just hope to get good grades in the competition and celebrate with you after the Olympic Games.

B: You won three gold medals at the Beijing Paralympic Games. At that time, I heard that you were actually very nervous and asked your family not to come to the game. Is London the same this time?

P: I am a very dedicated athlete, especially during the competition. I'm more used to having my own time to prepare for the game. An undisturbed space is very important to me. But this time the situation is a bit special, so my family came to London to support me. I am very happy.

B: How did you relieve the stress before the game?

P: My sleep quality is not very good, and I often find it difficult to relax. But recently I found that simply watching a movie at home or cooking something delicious can help me relax and decompress. Besides running, I am also fascinated by many other sports, and I will take part in many sports myself, such as shooting. However, I have put them aside recently, because I need to use 100% energy to prepare for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

B: Since you are going to participate in both the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games, will you make any adjustments in your training?

P: My plan this time is not only to participate in the Olympic Games, but also to defend my three-time champion in the Paralympic Games. I know it will be a big challenge, so I have to do a series of intensive training before. However, as far as the content of training is concerned, it is not much different from usual. I usually train six days a week, twice a day, namely track training and gym training. Of course, in addition, because the Olympic Games is the highest level competition in the world, athletes should be prepared not only physically, but also psychologically.

B: You said before that you trained hard and sacrificed a lot in your personal life in order to meet the Olympic A standard. Can you give some examples?

P: Apart from receiving unprecedented intensive training, the biggest sacrifice may be that many hobbies have to be put aside for the time being, such as motorcycle racing, which is exciting but a bit dangerous and can't be re-participated until after the Olympic Games. But I think it's worth it. The Olympic Games is the most important thing in my life now, and I believe there will be many opportunities to be others in the future.

B: Do you think your athletic talent is inherited?

P: It's not so much that I was particularly naughty when I was a child, but I think all children like to play. I like sports, I like cars and I dream of playing football. I also have a special interest in architecture. I think if I don't become an athlete, I should engage in a career related to architecture.

B: You are 25 years old, which should be regarded as the golden age of your career as an athlete. What do you think is your limit?

I don't think we'll ever know where our real limit is. That's why I chose to cooperate with oakley. I like their manifesto "beyond reason", challenging and exceeding one's own limits. I set higher demands on myself every day. After a period of time, your sweat and hard work will bring you happy results. If I don't get hurt, and keep this mentality and training, I think I can hold on to 20 16, and I think I will reach the peak of my competitive state at that time. Let's wait and see!

B: 100 meters, 200 meters, 400 meters. If you can choose freely, who do you want to compete with most?

P: Well, if I can only choose one, I'm really not sure. I have some lists, such as Frank Frederic and colin jackson. God, I'm really a little unsure if I can keep up with them, because these guys are too fast.

What about Bolt?

P: I certainly hope to compete with him. Bolt is a very good sprinter, I respect him, and I am eager to beat him if I have the chance. Who knows, anything can happen on the track.

B: You are also the idol of many people now. What is the most inspiring part of your own story?

P: Even if you are physically disabled, as long as you have enough self-confidence, you are still capable of accomplishing everything you dream of doing.