Pistorius to discuss running career
Oscar Pistorius’ agent is seeking a meeting with the double-amputee athlete in prison in the next few days to discuss his running future.
South Africa’s Olympic committee said Pistorius was ineligible to compete for the length of his five-year prison sentence for killing girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.
Agent Peet van Zyl said lawyers will meet Pistorius in prison tomorrow, after which it will become clearer when Mr Van Zyl and Pistorius’s long-time track coach, Ampie Louw, can talk to him about his career.
“We would like to see the young man,” Mr Van Zyl said.
He said no decision had been made or discussions held over the multiple Paralympic champion’s track career because he was taken straight to prison following his sentencing on Tuesday.
Also today, South African Olympic committee chief executive Tubby Reddy said that 27-year-old Pistorius could not compete for the full duration of his sentence under the body’s rules, even if he was released from jail early to go under house arrest.
Pistorius’ sentence allows for him to be released from prison after serving one-sixth of his term – or 10 months – to serve the remainder under correctional supervision, which involves house arrest.
The South African Olympic Committee and Sports Confederation decision matches the International Paralympic Committee, which said Pistorius could not compete in its events while he was serving his sentence, no matter where he was serving it.
The International Olympic Committee and the IAAF, which controls able-bodied athletics events, have declined to comment on Pistorius’ case.
Pistorius, whose lower legs were amputated as a baby, was one of the world’s most recognisable and celebrated athletes when he competed on his carbon-fibre running blades. He made history by becoming the first amputee athlete to run at the able-bodied world championships in 2011 and the Olympics a year later.
He was convicted last month of culpable homicide, which is comparable to manslaughter, for shooting Miss Steenkamp multiple times at his home in the pre-dawn hours of February 14, 2013.
A South African judge acquitted Pistorius of murder, but still sent him to prison for acting negligently in his girlfriend’s death.
