麻豆APP

South African sprint runner Oscar Pistorius taking part in the Landsm贸t ungmennaf茅lags 脥slands.Photo sourced from

Top 10 Amazing Facts about Oscar Pistorius

Oscar Pistorius is a South African former professional sprinter and convicted murderer. Both of his feet were amputated when he was 11 months old owing to a congenital defect; he was born missing the outside of both feet and both fibulae.

Pistorius ran in both non-disabled sprint events and sprint events for below-knee amputees. He was the tenth athlete to compete at both the Paralympic Games and Olympic Games. Let’s take a look at some of the most amazing facts about him;

1. Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend in his Pretoria home

On 14 February 2013, Pistorius shot and killed his girlfriend, paralegal and model Reeva Steenkamp, in his Pretoria home. He claimed he had mistaken Steenkamp for an intruder hiding in the bathroom. He was arrested and charged with murder.

At his trial the following year, Pistorius was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of culpable homicide. He received a five-year prison sentence for culpable homicide and a concurrent three-year suspended sentence for a separate reckless endangerment conviction. 

2. He tried several sports before he finally became a sprinter

South African runner Oscar Pistorius greeting fans after a race during the 2nd Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Warsaw, Poland. photo by Kastom

Pistorius tried several sports before he finally arrived at sprinting. He attended Constantia Kloof Primary School and Pretoria Boys High School, where he played rugby union in the school’s third XV team. He played water polo and tennis at the provincial level between the ages of 11 and 13.

 Pistorius also took part in club Olympic wrestling and trained at Jannie Brooks’s garage gym in Pretoria. Brooks remarked that it took six months before he noticed that Pistorius “had no legs” but was able to do many exercises including “boxing, skipping and doing press-ups”. 

3. He was born to a Christian family and he is from an Afrikaner family

Pistorius was born to a Christian family and is also from an Afrikaner family with partial Italian ancestry from his maternal great-grandfather who was an Italian emigrant to Kenya. Afrikaans is his mother tongue and he is also fluent in English. 

Oscar Leonard Carl Pistorius was born to Henke and Sheila Pistorius on 22 November 1986 in Sandton, Johannesburg, in what was then Transvaal Province (now Gauteng Province) of South Africa. He also has an elder sister Carl and a younger sister Aimee. 

4. Pistorius’ both legs were amputated when he was just eleven months old

Oscar Pistorius during 2011 World championships Athletics in Daegu. Photo by Erik van Leeuwen.

Pistorius was born with fibular hemimelia (congenital absence of the fibula) in both legs. When he was eleven months old, both of his legs were amputated halfway between his knees and ankles. 

After a serious rugby knee injury in June 2003, he was introduced to running in January 2004 while undergoing rehabilitation at the University of Pretoria’s High-Performance Centre with coach Ampie Louw, and “never looked back”.

5. Pistorius has received several awards in his career

Oscar Pistorius wins the 400m T44 final. photo by David Jones.

Pistorius has won several awards and honours so far in his career. He has won several Gold medals in disabled sports events in several years including 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, and 2012.

He has also received Silver and Bronze medals in his career in the non-disabled sports event over those same years until he was convicted of murder. sports. He was also awarded the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsperson of the year.

6. Pistorius has also received several awards in his career

World Record by South African Team in 4x100m Relay. PHOTO BY Mia Elliott.

He has received several honours in his career. In 2006, Pistorius has conferred the Order of Ikhamanga in Bronze (OIB) by then President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, for outstanding achievement in sports. 

On 9 December 2007, Pistorius was awarded the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Helen Rollason Award, which is conferred for outstanding courage and achievement in the face of adversity. This was later revoked following his murder conviction.

After the 2012 Summer Paralympics, the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow announced they would confer on Pistorius, among others, an honorary doctorate. In February 2015, following his conviction for culpable homicide, the university revoked the honorary degree. 

On 22 August 2012, he was honoured with the unveiling of a large mural depicting his achievements in the town of Gemona, Italy.

7. He has had several sponsorship deals and charitable activities

Pistorius has had several sponsorship deals and charitable activities over the years. In 2012, Pistorius had sponsorship deals worth US$2 million a year with 脰ssur, BT, Nike, Oakley and Thierry Mugler. He also participated as a model in advertising campaigns. 

Pistorius also actively supports the Mineseeker Foundation, a charity that works to raise awareness for landmine victims and has a support programme to provide prostheses for victims.

8. Pistorius loves tattoos and his net worth is around $5 million

Pistorius has two visible tattoos: the dates of his mother’s birth and death (“LVIII V VIII 鈥� II III VI” 鈥� 8 May 1958 鈥� 6 March 2002) are tattooed on the inside of his right arm; the other tattoo, which is on his back, is the Bible verse 1 Corinthians 9:26鈥�27 which begins, “I do not run like a man running aimlessly.”

His net worth is around $ 5 million and he got most of his wealth primarily from his career as a sports person and also from commercial adverts. He lived in Silverwoods Country Estate, Pretoria. The house was sold in June 2014. Aside from running, his interests include architecture, motorbiking, playing the electric guitar and breeding race horses. 

9. He got an injury which affected his running schedule for a year

In February 2009, Pistorius was seriously injured when he was thrown from a boat in an accident on the Vaal River near Johannesburg. He was airlifted to Milpark Hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair broken facial bones, including his nose and jaw.

There were initial concerns about his fitness, but he recovered fully. However, the accident affected his training and running schedule for that year. He could not participate in any running event that year because of the injury but later got well. 

10. Pistorius was sentenced to 15 years doubling his initial sentence of 6 years for murder

Pistorius was arrested and sentenced to 15 years which was initially a 6year term after South Africa’s Supreme Court appealed his sentence. In 2017 Pistorius had his prison sentence more than doubled, a surprisingly dramatic intervention by South Africa鈥檚 Supreme Court of Appeal.

Supreme Court Justice Willie Seriti said a panel of judges unanimously upheld an appeal by prosecutors against Pistorius鈥� original six-year sentence. Under that initial sentence, which the court called 鈥渟hockingly lenient鈥�, the double-amputee runner could have been released on parole in mid-2019. Now, the earliest he鈥檒l be eligible for parole is 2023.

The ruling brought an end to the near five-year legal saga surrounding Pistorius, a multiple Paralympic champion and record-breaker who was the first amputee to run at the Olympics and one of the most celebrated sportsmen in the world. He however is eligible for parole in 2023.