I’m done talking about my legs – Oscar

August 19 2011 at 02:02pm
By Jonathan McEvoy

Oscar Pistorius calls to his live-in caretaker from Malawi. “Frankie, Frankie. Please can you bring me my legs, brother?”

The request is spoken in a soft South African accent at Pistorius’s bachelor pad on a guarded estate outside Pretoria. He – not Frankie – has just prepared us a lunch of chicken salad, avocado and nuts. Now he is in the process of taking off the Cheetah blades he runs in to slip back into the prosthetic limbs he uses in everyday life.

The blades, briefly worn indoors for our photographer’s benefit, are placed into a tennis bag and taken to the boot of the car. They are ready for the next day’s training. Just as they will be in South Korea later this month when Pistorius becomes the first amputee to compete at an athletics world championships.