Paralympic Games: Oscar Pistorius gains revenge as he powers to relay gold

The 25-year-old brought the South African team home in a new world record of 41.78 seconds to crown a night which saw the great blade debate take another twist. Pistorius was pitted in direct opposition with Alan Fonteles Oliveira and American Blake Leeper, both of whose long blades he had fiercely criticised in the wake of his shock loss on Sunday.

But he held off the Brazilian strongly down the home straight to roars from the crowd.

Brazilian and American disappointment was compounded when both teams, who had come home second and third respectively, were disqualified.

Earlier, British teenager Jonnie  Peacock roared into the 100m final at the Olympic Stadium last night as the great blade debate took another twist.

The 19-year-old, who looked relaxed and confident in his blocks, defeated Pistorius’ conqueror as he clocked 11.08 seconds into a stiff head wind, equalling the T44 Paralympic record.

Only the top two advanced along with the two fastest losers, but the Cambridgeshire athlete is not the world record holder with a best of 10.85secs for nothing.

Peacock, who trains under former Olympic 100m champion Donovan Bailey’s former coach Dan Pfaff, said: “It was nuts out there when they called my name and my mates and family were by the start line and it relaxed me. I haven’t been nervous at all. I’ll have to go back now and look at the video. The end of the race wasn’t as controlled as I’d like it to be.

“I need to keep my core stronger and my start could have been better, but that race into that kind of wind [a 1.6m/s head wind] could have been worth 10.90 or 10.95, which would have been my fastest ever first round. I’ll come back stronger tomorrow. I expected a few of the guys to push me more to be honest. I didn’t think I’d win by so much, so I’m happy.”

Peacock, who lost his right leg below the knee to meningitis aged five, easily finished ahead of Singleton, who was second in 11.46s. Oliveira was third in 11.56, but made it through as a fastest loser. Afterwards Singleton appeared to back up Pistorius’ claim that the athletes were not running on a level playing field, saying it was time to split the classes.

Pistorius, who won his heat, launched an outspoken attack after his 200m defeat on the length of some of his rivals’ blades. Despite being billed a T44 race (single leg below-the-knee amputees), the races also include T43 runners, who are double amputees, like Pistorius and Oliveira.

Singleton said: “I think the T43s and T44s need to split classes. It’s not apples to apples,  it’s apples to pineapples right now.

“If you want to keep us together you need to re-evaluate that formula to make sure it’s a fair playing field for all the athletes, because single leg amputees, we don’t really have too much manoeuvring when it comes to height.”