London 2012 Olympics: South Africa’s reprieve gives Pistorius second chance

Pistorius was due to run the third leg in yesterday morning’s heats but did not even get his hands on the baton after team-mate Ofentse Mogawane collided with Kenya’s Vincent Mumu Kiilu around the top bend on the second leg. Both athletes were sent sprawling to the track and although Kiilu was able to resume running, Mogawane suffered a suspected dislocated shoulder and could not carry on.

The Kenyan team were disqualified and South Africa lodged a successful  appeal which saw them added to  today’s final in lane nine. LJ van Zyl will replace Mogawane in the quartet.

“IT’S ON!! We in the FINAL,” double amputee Pistorius wrote on Twitter.

“Team management Protested as Ofentse was taken out and we have been given Lane 9!! Thank you Lord! Emotional roller coaster!”

Pistorius won a silver medal in the relay at the World Championships in Daegu last year, although he was not selected for the final after running in the heats.

Speaking of the incident, before the appeal was made, Pistorius said: “I was standing there and I took my eyes off the screen and kept them on the straight and obviously just as I took them off it must have happened.

“He’s not the biggest of guys and initially I thought he was maybe pushed in behind someone and then I just carried on looking and he didn’t come out. It’s really tough at the moment. I feel sorry for my team-mates, they’re a phenomenal group of guys.

“It’s just really disappointing for us because we came off a second place at the World Champs last year and a national record and we’ve got more or less the same team.”

The Bahamas and the United States were the fastest qualifiers after being given the same time of two minutes 58.87 seconds in heat two, ahead of Trinidad and Tobago and Great Britain who were also given the same time of 3:00.38 in heat one.

Jack Green lived up to his promise to show what he is capable of with a baton in his hand by helping Britain reach the final.

Green was devastated to bow out of his specialist event, the 400m hurdles, in the semi-finals after hitting the third hurdle and crashing to the track.

The 20-year-old was determined to prove firstly his fitness and then show he deserved his place on the relay team, doing so with a storming finish to the third leg to give anchor runner Martyn Rooney a narrow lead.

Rooney held that lead until easing up just before the line, allowing Trinidad and Tobago to take first place, although both teams were given the same time to qualify automatically for the final.

Any faint hopes of Usain Bolt appearing in the 4x400m final were ended when Jamaican team-mate Jermaine Gonzales pulled up injured on the third leg in heat two.

Green, whose training partner and world 400m hurdles champion Dai Greene could feature in the final, said: “I am gutted about my individual event, but it was nice to come here and kind of make up for that. I’ve only half made up for it, I’ve got to run well tomorrow as well if I’m in the team. I’d like to think I’ve done enough to be in the team, I put us in a very good place, but I’m not in charge of the team.

“But it felt good, it felt quite controlled, felt like there’s a bit more there. I didn’t want to go off crazy, especially with the anger I’ve got in me still from the hurdles. I think if the relay was a single individual event that would be my event, it’s much better than the hurdles, I haven’t got anything to trip over. I think that was just a hint of what I can do.”

Asked about coping with his fall in the hurdles, Green added: “I was very disappointed. I still wanted to run but I kind of didn’t.

“It would have been nice just to finish up, leave it there, but this is an Olympics in my home country and I have an  opportunity to try and win a medal so I’m going to try and do that.”

Rooney added: “I was pleasantly surprised when I got the baton in front. It’s definitely a great place to be in front of the home crowd. I eased up quite early, I thought the Trinidad guy wasn’t going to get there so I looked the other way and he dipped.

“It’s a rookie mistake and I’m disappointed that I didn’t win it for the team because the guys ran so well. I definitely wasn’t being pushed so I’m excited about tomorrow. I think we’ve got to go in there believing that we can win a medal.”

Nigel Levine, who ran the first leg, added: “The aim was to qualify very  easily. We finished second by a minor mistake by Rooney. But we all know that it’s going to be a better day tomorrow.

“We were all disappointed to just be semi-finalists in the individual, but we’ve got another opportunity to run and show everyone what we can do.”

Conrad Williams, who ran the second leg, added: “We’ve got 2:59 in us and we’re definitely going to have to break three minutes to get on that medal rostrum.

“We can do that, Rooney eased back knowing we were through, that’s the main thing. We’ve had three days rest so we are fresh. But it’s still going to be tough to make a medal so we’re not counting our eggs before they’ve hatched.”

Elsewhere, it took almost two hours to determine the 12 qualifiers for  tomorrow’s final of the women’s high jump.

With 14 athletes still in contention when the bar was raised to the automatic qualification standard of 1.96m, lively discussions started between athletes and officials to determine if the additional height would be required to make the cut.

After careful study of the standings, all seven athletes without a failure decided to pass as they were guaranteed to be in the top 12, with three athletes with only one failure doing the same.

That left four women battling for two places and former world junior champion Svetlana Radzivil of Uzbekistan cleared 1.96m at the first attempt to book her place.

Germany’s Ariane Friedrich and Greece’s Adonia Steryiou bowed out after three failures at 1.96m, leaving Russia’s Irina Gordeeva to advance courtesy of having just one failure against Friedrich’s two at 1.93m.

In the decathlon, two-time world champion Trey Hardee cut Ashton Eaton’s lead to 99 points after seven events, closing the gap with better performances in the hurdles and discus. World-record holder Eaton had a  220-point advantage over his US team-mate after the first five events on Wednesday but Hardee reduced the margin by running the fastest time in the 110m hurdles – 13.54 seconds – and finishing third in the discus with a throw of 48.26m.

Eaton posted the second-best hurdles time (13.56) but his 42.53 in the discus was only 22nd in the rankings.

With the pole vault, javelin and 1,500m to go, Eaton had 6,409 points and Hardee had 6,310.

Eaton broke the decathlon world record at the US trials in June when he finished with 9,039 points.