The Tragedy of Oscar Pistorius

Once upon a time, South African sprint runner Oscar Pistorius was a National hero; born without a fibula in either of his legs which were amputated below the knee before he turned one and within six months he was walking successfully with a pair of prosthetic legs. His parents divorced when he was 6, a fact that contributed to a strained relationship between Oscar and his father. His mother died when he was 15, from drug complications following a hysterectomy.

How did it come to this

After competing in several school sports, he took up running at 16 and within just a few months had captured a gold at the 2004 Athens Paralympics. Initially banned from international competition, Pistorius successfully appealed the ruling and at the 2012 Summer games in London became the first amputee to compete in the Olympics.  To mark the occasion, Pistorius flew out his 89-year-old grandmother to watch him race. "It's just an unbelievable experience," Pistorius said shortly after his first Olympic race. "I found myself smiling on the starting blocks, which is very rare."

Oscar at the London Olympics in 2012

However the fairy tale came to a tragic end when on February 14 (Valentines day) in  2013, Pistorious found himself firing shots into his bathroom fatally killing his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp  at his home in South Africa. What follows can only be described as the stuff of nightmares.

Happier times with Reeve Steenkamp before her tragic ending

Five days after Reeva Steenkamp's death, during a hearing at the Magistrate Court in Pretoria, Pistorius admitted to unintentionally shooting Steenkamp at his home on Valentine's Day 2013. He went on to state that he had mistaken his girlfriend for an intruder and shot her through a locked bathroom door in the home. 

Pistorius  met Nelson Mandela in 2008 who described him as an inspiration 

As the trial drew to a close, the world came to terms with the broken man the Olympian has become. Sentencing is expected to be concluded within the next 72 hours, whatever the outcome, the tragic ending of a pair so promising is almost a shake-spearan classic. While it is sad that Reeva died in such a painful way, more sad is what would become of a man who just a couple of years ago seemed to have the world at his feet but apparently it was not enough.