Olympics are now in sight as Oscar Pistorius hits new high

A day after smashing his personal best in the 400 metres at a meet in Lignano, Italy, to qualify for next month's worlds, the 24-year-old South African said yesterday that all the weight on his shoulders had now been lifted. "I feel amazing. The pressure has been released," Pistorius said. "I was confident, but never in my life did I think I would beat my personal best by such a big margin."

Pistorius said his achievement still felt "weird" and "surreal" and hadn't sunk in yet after he clocked 45.07 seconds on Tuesday night in his final race before the qualifying cut-off, having never run faster than 45.61sec before. His sensational performance - in his last chance to go inside the 45.25sec qualifying time - earned him a place at next month's worlds in Daegu, South Korea and also put him inside the "A" standard for the London Olympics.

"It was my last chance but I was quite confident," he said. "It's a goal for me, a dream come true."

Pistorius is set to be the first amputee runner to compete at an able-bodied world championships and has taken a big step toward competing at the Olympics. He has to run the "A" standard twice next season ahead of the London Games to meet the South African Olympic Committee's automatic selection criteria, but Tuesday's time was a major breakthrough.

Less than 24 hours after his "highest career moment," the man nicknamed "Blade Runner" was already on his way to his training camp in Gemona, in northern Italy, to continue working. "I'd like to run a couple more 'A' times before the worlds," he said. "It's been 18 months to two years of hard work to get here but you have to keep training, keep working. I'm very excited."

Pistorius' road to the worlds and the Olympics saw him battle to achieve the qualifying time, but also fight a ban by the International Association of Athletics Federations after it ruled that his carbon-fibre blades gave him an unfair advantage. Pistorius took his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and won the right to compete against able-bodied athletes in 2008.

Distracted, he didn't come close to qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Pistorius' agent, Peet van Zyl, said he used that legal struggle to inspire the runner to one final effort in Lignano.

"I spoke to him before the race and told him 'Listen, this is what it's all about. This is what we fought the court cases for," said Van Zyl. For the athlete, however, the court battle was no longer important. "It was so long ago, I've put it behind me," Pistorius said yesterday.

"I don't think about it any more."

Running the qualifying time was easily his best moment, he said, in a seven-year athletics career that only began after he was advised to take up running to rehabilitate from a rugby injury.

Pistorius will run next at a meet in Budapest, Hungary on 31 July and hopes to compete at the Diamond League event at Crystal Palace in London on 5-6 August - where he's looking to run another "A" time in preparation for his world championships debut.

Pistorius will be back competing in London next year, and will realise his Olympic dream, if he can maintain the form he showed in Lignano.

There will be no special treatment for Pistorius, South Africa's Olympic committee and athletics federation said, and he will have to achieve the qualifying standards next year.

"Now he knows he can do it, there's no reason why he can't keep on doing it," Athletics South Africa chairman James Evans said.

"The way we've treated Oscar has always been we are not going to do him any favours and we are not going to hold anything against him. He will be treated like any other athlete."