Oscar is not such a saint

Oscar Pistorius's "outburst", as his post-race hissy fit has come to be known, may well prove to be seminal in the history of paralympic sport.

For a while now, we've been damning paralympians with faint praise, cooing about how brave and inspirational they are.

But after our vanquished double amputee suggested that Brazilian Alan Oliveira's jet shoes (prosthetics/blades) gave him an advantage in that T44 200m final, we finally got an insight into what paralympians are really like.

These guys are as competitive as any of the able-bodied sportsmen.

If you don't believe that, consider reports before the Paralympics in London that some of the paralysed athletes break toes or put sharp objects in the seats of their wheelchairs to spike up their blood pressure, which apparently boosts performance.

Also, a lot of would-be multiple gold medallists came unstuck when they got reclassified to compete against stronger opponents before the Games, having classified themselves to participate against more disabled athletes.

In short, paralympians are as sneaky, as competitive and as self-centred as their able-bodied brethren - and Pistorius's rant was a prime example of that.

Forget the timing of the utterances; Pistorius airing his suspicions about Oliveira's blades had the hallmarks of a whinge.

He had been beaten in a time (21.45sec) which was slower than the world record he had set the day before (21.3sec).

This basically meant two things: he had run his final in the semifinals, and having broken his record in that race, he complacently felt he only had to turn up to win the gold medal.

The rest of his argument, that Oliveira's longer blades gave him an advantage with his stride length, has since been proven wrong, as he travelled the half lap in fewer steps than the Brazilian.

Yet the revealing thing has been that he has apologised for the timing of his complaints, but promised to take his case further with the International Paralympic Committee.

Having apparently broached the subject of longer blades long before the Paralympics, he may as well not have apologised.

This is where we probably get closer to understanding the real Pistorius, and not the saint we've been constructing in our minds since he hit the Paralympic scene as a teenager.

Pistorius is a sportsman whose main aim is to look after No1, and his inspirational qualities are a by-product of that.

He suffers from the same self-centredness and competitive arrogance that define great athletes.

And like all great athletes, we've all taken turns indulging him, as shown by Sascoc blindly committing to pursuing his cause when science suggests he doesn't have a case.

The irony of his accusing an opponent wearing the same brand of prosthetics of deriving an advantage from them is a case in point for his selfishness.

He had no qualms telling the International Association of Athletics Federations he got no advantage from his blades, but he's comfortable telling the IPC that Oliveira did.

Incidentally, it will be a great surprise if the IAAF doesn't want to rake him over those coals again on the basis of his protest.

What really hurt Oscar about this defeat is that, having become the first Paralympian to compete at the Olympics, he was supposed to transcend the Paralympics.

But his triumph has been dealt a bloody nose because some Brazilian has beaten the original Blade Runner and taken away his aura and specialness.

We should judge Pistorius by his outburst, but whether it defines him depends entirely on what he does if he gets beaten again at the Paralympics.

Either way, he's less of a saint than he was at the weekend.