“I didn’t grow up thinking I had a disability. I grew up thinking I had different shoes,” Oscar Pistorius said in last week’s lead-up to his 400-meter Olympic race. "I just see him as another athlete, another competitor. What's more important is I see him as another person,” said Kirani James, the runner who won the semifinal heat in which Pistorius came last, and the favorite to win the finals. Upon finishing, James embraced Pistorius; they traded numbers from their jerseys.
Pistorius, a Paralympics star, is now the Olympics’ first athlete who is a double-amputee, a man who runs on two carbon limbs. He has been followed by controversy, by international sports officials and armchair sports analysts insisting that his carbon legs give him an unfair advantage. He has fought hard to prove that isn’t the case—and his upright, bouncing exit from the race blocks—when athletes running on skin and bones can exit almost parallel to the ground, reducing wind resistance—should offer some visual proof to the studies that show he has no advantage.
But none of this is what most impresses me. What impresses me: this quote, again from the lead-up to last week’s race: “I’m not expecting to win.”
I’m not expecting to win. This from an athlete who is used to winning, to breaking records and winning gold medals against competitors like him, as well as competitors with one amputation, with no amputations. This from an athlete who likes to win. Pistorius wasn’t fighting to race against able-bodied athletes in the Olympics as a showpiece, the one “disabled athlete” with access to a world audience. He was fighting to race as a competitor—his competition understands that. He wants to win every time he leans into the starting blocks, every time a practice gets hard.
And this is what most impresses me: to know that you won’t win, that being born without fibulae is not insignificant—and to dedicate yourself to running faster than your own previous best. To still run as if you will win. What impresses me: to know that you might fall, that you might cross the finish line in embarrassment, or not at all—and to risk racing anyway. To know that detractors will tell all sorts of stories about your success or lack of success—and to shut them out entirely.
It’s one thing to have Michael Phelps-like confidence, prestige, privilege, to enter each race expecting to end victorious. It’s another to know at least part of the world sees you as a freak or cheater or worse. And to still compete. To still win the respect of your competitors.
Pistorius’ goal was to make the semifinal round in the Olympics. He did. And many of us rooting for him understand this as a gold-medal win in and of itself: an athlete with two carbon legs stealing the world’s attention. But what will stay with me long after the Olympics is Pistorius’ self-reflection—“I’m not expecting to win.” And the speed with which he ran anyway.
Planet of the Blind 
The man is a god, in my mind — or perhaps just a man — but what a glorious one. I, too, have been mesmerized by his skill and work — posted about it today on my own blog.
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I beg to differ with some of your observations. The line “I didn’t grow up thinking I had a disability. I grew up thinking I had different shoes” sounds to me like a product of a media corporation–he does have significant corporate sponsorships (Nike for example). What bothers me is he is just too slick. He presents a non confrontational and socially acceptable concept of disability. He often states he does not consider himself to be disabled thus reinforcing the concept of the super cripple. He never ever discusses the cost of prostheses that many cannot afford. I could go on but I think you get my point–he is a corporate shill.
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