Oscar Pistorius Lost The 200m Final At The Paralympics, And Everyone's Giving The Side-Eye To The Guy Who Won

Here's Oscar Pistorius, who seemed well on his way to an overwhelming victory in the men's 200m at the Paralympics, losing to Brazil's Alan Oliveira. Oliveira finished the race in 21.45 seconds, .07 seconds faster than Pistorius. The video above is worth watching if only for the deafening silence that greets Oliveria's win—while shots of the stands make the 200m final look very well attended, the crowd showed its rooting interests by pretty much shutting up after Oliveria overtook Pistorius. Immediately after the race, the silver medalist alleged foul play:

These guys are a lot taller and you can't compete (with the) stride length. You saw how far he came back. We aren't racing a fair race. I gave it my best. The IPC have their regulations. The regulations (allow) that athletes can make themselves unbelievably high. We've tried to address the issue with them in the weeks up to this and it's just been falling on deaf ears.

He's already apologized for stealing Oliveria's thunder, but maintains that the blades gave Oliveira an unfair advantage. The International Paralympic Committee has granted him an audience some time in the near future.

Pistorius fought long and hard for the right to compete in the Olympics, and contended with rulings from the IAAF—later overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sport—that said the blades themselves (unrelated to their height) gave him an advantage over able-bodied athletes. Not only that, but Pistorius himself has been accused before of using disproportionately tall blades, exactly what he said about Oliveira yesterday after the 200m. When he was only 17, American single-amputee racers Marlon Shirley and Brian Frasure accused Pistorius of "racing tall." Usually, one uses "wingspan and femur measurements to come up with a conservative estimate" of "anatomical height" in the case of double-amputee track athletes. If they fudge that estimate in choosing their prosthetics, they can lower their times through increased stride length. The accusation didn't stick to Pistorius then, and it doesn't appear to have been an issue since, but it's interesting to see him throw it out against another runner having faced the rumor himself.

Oscar Pistorius Apologizes After Loss [ESPN] Racing Tall: A Paralympian Stands Accused Of Getting An Illegal Leg Up [Slate]