Golden boy has a fiery edge
Excess energy drives Oscar Pistorius’ success but also puts him on a knife edge, Fay Schlesinger and Rick Broadbent write.
On Valentine’s Day 2006, Oscar Pistorius crept over to the home of his girlfriend in the middle of the night. He had blown up 200 coloured balloons, which he used to decorate the trees, fences and driveway outside her house. He took a spray can and scrawled ‘‘I Love You, Tiger’’ on the road.
Seven years on, and Valentine’s Day ended very differently. The world’s most famous amputee athlete was charged yesterday with murdering Reeva Steenkamp, a 30-year-old model and trainee lawyer, and one of a long line of stunning women Pistorius had dated.
As for the recipient of the 200 balloons, she had already lost out to the athlete’s dizzying career and frequent trips abroad. He and Vicky Miles, his most long-term girlfriend, had a ‘‘terrible argument that proved fatal to the relationship’’, Pistorius said in his autobiography Blade Runner.
To most who knew Pistorius in the sporting world, he was a consummate professional: charming, and relaxed.
‘‘He is one of the nicest, most polite, professional and approachable of all sportsmen,’’ one person who has worked with him said.
Chinks in this veneer, however, betrayed a more fiery side. During the London Paralympics, he hit out at his rival Alan Oliveira after being beaten in the 200 metres final, and days later he stormed out of an interview with the BBC when he was asked whether the authorities considered him an ‘‘inconvenient embarrassment’’.
As South Africa comes to terms with the downfall of this sporting hero, the question is pertinent.
Soon after Pistorius returned to South Africa from London last year, he allegedly threatened to break the legs of Quinton van der Burgh, a millionaire television producer.
According to reports, Pistorius accused him of infidelity with a girlfriend during the London Games. Van der Burgh stressed that the unnamed woman in question was not Pistorius’s girlfriend, and declined to comment further. Police were involved but no arrests or charges were brought.
In 2009, Pistorius was arrested for assault after slamming a door on a woman and spent a night in police custody.
Family and friends said it was an accident and charges were dropped.
In his autobiography Pistorius spoke at length of the ‘‘fiery relationship’’ he had with Miles.
The couple’s rows were regular and ‘‘nasty’’, though there was no mention of physical violence.
After Miles, there was another blonde called Jenna, and then came Samantha Taylor, a marketing student from Cape Town who said the couple dated for 18 months until late last year.
‘‘Oscar is certainly not what people think he is,’’ Taylor told a South African newspaper in November. She claimed she was ‘‘prepared to reveal what [Pistorius] made me go through’’ but later withdrew her comments.
The sprinter has spoken of his excess energy, his determination and his recklessness – the keys to his success, but also the reason he has lived on a knife edge.
He goes to bed as early as 8pm but struggles to sleep. After he got rid of his television and set his phone to turn off automatically he would read voraciously. He told The New York Times that when a house security alarm went off recently, he grabbed the gun he kept by his bed and crept downstairs.
In 2009 he crashed a speedboat into a submerged pier in South Africa and needed 180 stitches for his injuries. That moment was a life-changing experience during which he ‘‘made peace’’ with himself, he later said.
Some things in his life remained constant, however: he continued to drive fast cars through Pretoria, loved wrestling and boxing, and shooting at a local range.
He adores God, his dogs Enzo and Silo, and his family. He said in his autobiography: ‘‘Spiritually, I believe it’s important to live by example.’’