Beijing Olympic Games

THE world road cycling championships next year, to start at Fed Square and end in Geelong, will be the most radical in history.

THE international swimming federation laid down the law on hi-tech swimsuits this week, but the sport still looks a lot like the wild west just two months before the world titles begin in July.

South Africa's double amputee triple world record holder arrives in Manchester with tales of triumph over adversity

Oscar Pistorius is not one to sit still. The double amputee triple world record holder skips about, fetching chairs and coffees, looking after others as he talks about competing in the Paralympic World Cup in Manchester this week. Watching him move is fascinating. He challenges every stereotypical notion about what it means – and how it must feel - to be disabled.

Pistorius has had prosthetic legs since he was 11 months old but in sports-mad South Africa his parents raised him like any other child, even playing rugby at school. "I think mentally it probably built me up. It made me strong in the sense that I don't see difference, a competition is a competition, it's not disabled or abled."

At boarding school in Pretoria the other kids treated him as an equal, playing pranks on him as mercilessly as anyone else. "My mates used to hide my legs in the morning. I'm not a morning person anyway so I was always late having to look for my legs which would be hidden on top of a locker or something."

Learning about disabled sport came much later in his life. "I only started competing in disabled sport four years ago. At first it was really weird, I had this stereotype a lot of people have about disabled sport being a second grade version of able-bodied sport, then I got into it and I realised how wrong I was." But as Pistorius blew the paralympic world away – setting world records in the 100, 200 and 400 metres – the-22 year-old quickly realised that to run even faster he would also have to compete against able-bodied athletes at the highest international level. It was not an easy concept for people to get their head round.

"When people say, 'Why do you want to run in the Olympics?' they're like, 'You're not going to win.' People who ask that question are people that don't understand the theory of running to run your best time, they are people who run to win. But it's not just about winning. If I run in the Olympics, my chances of running a personal best are very good because I'm running against guys way stronger than me."

His attitude has not been welcomed by everyone. When Pistorius announced his intention to compete in the 400m at the Olympic Games in Beijing – against able-bodied runners – he was viewed with suspicion by the International Association of Athletics Federations. The accusation was that his prosthetic legs – Cheetah Flex-Foot carbon fibre limbs – gave him an unfair advantage. A ban was promptly put in place and the IAAF probably thought that would be the end of it. It thought wrong.

Pistorius gathered together 12 of the best biomechanical scientists in the world – "we got the leading scientist in artificial intelligence, guys who have been testing hopping patterns of kangaroos for the last 30 years and breathing patterns in elephants, it was incredible" – together they took the case to the court of arbitration for sport, and won. Ultimately Pistorius failed to make the 400m qualifying time of 45.55 seconds, missing out by 0.3sec, but it was a landmark decision that made him an international hero.

"Afterwards I received emails from around the world from athletes saying they had not been able to compete at their state or club meet because of the IAAF decision but now they could. The court case was horrendous for me but the verdict made it worthwhile."

A look at those prosthetics makes the whole episode seem farcical. From a distance they look space-age but in close-up they are crudely cut pieces of carbon fibre bolted onto wooden boards, the leg joints softened with bits of old grey foam. Pistorius groans describing how they feel to wear. "They're so uncomfortable! I hate them," he says, "they're so tight because they can't be loose because of loss of energy. I wear them an hour-and-a-half a day and when I take them off I'm ripping them off. They're very low tech. The carbon fibre is a great invention but there's nothing really to them.

"You get some scientists or professors with doctorates and some of these okes [guys], you read their stuff and you think, this guy's never had experience of artificial limbs. Gert-Peter Brüggemann [the scientist employed by the IAAF in their case] was set up so badly by the IAAF. The tests they made him do were completely misdirected. They asked him to do a VO2 max test – for a sprinter that's like the stupidest shit ever. They lost their case so badly it was a joke. They just made such stupid comments. I don't think they ever thought I'd take it up further, they thought I'd just roll over."

After losing so much time fighting court cases last season Pistorius had hoped to crack the 400m qualifying time for the world championships this summer. But the daredevil athlete, known for riding motorbikes and driving fast cars, had a wake-up call when he crashed his boat in February, breaking ribs and smashing his face. Pistorius admits he was lucky to survive.

"My friend and I just wanted to have a chilled weekend so we took the boat for a ride down the river. The water level was high because of all the rain in January and there was a pier that was hidden under the water. We were riding on the river at dusk and we were riding into the sun. I just didn't see the pier. When we hit it I went straight into the steering wheel. I broke my ribs and my jaw and smashed my eye socket. I still haven't got much feeling in my nose, my cheek or my lip and the doctors say that whatever sensation doesn't come back in nine months won't come back at all."

Soon South African newspaper reports surfaced claiming that there were empty bottles found in the back of the boat. "They wrote I was intoxicated at the time. It was really tough for my family. As a sportsman you are used to the ups and downs of the media but your family is not."

But Pistorius had more pressing concerns on his mind. "After worrying about whether I was going to live or not my next thought was my athletics career. The accident has changed me. You go through an experience like that and you cannot stay the same."

"I'll slow down," he promises. "I've sold my car that was too fast and I haven't ridden superbikes since my accident. I won't stop riding completely but I have to look at my life, the boat accident wasn't doing anything reckless but you have to say there are aspects of my life that I can minimise taking chances on. I have to re-evaluate."

After six weeks unable to train his schedule has been badly disrupted. "The first week I was running I had a gumguard in my mouth because my jaw was still wired. But I'm very lucky to still be able to make something of this year. It hasn't changed my goals, it's going to be hard to obtain but I'm still going for it." Finding an extra half a second in a sprint is no easy task, especially after such a serious accident; does he really think it is possible? Pistorius laughs. "As you've seen I'm not bad under pressure."

Pistorius says he is not a natural spokesperson, that it is not his primary intention to change the way the world sees disability, but he slips easily into the role. In terms of changing people's perception of disability the next generation are his biggest hope. "Kids are really honest. When my godson was three years old he went into a shop with his dad and saw the plastic mannequins with no feet. He said, 'Look! He's got feet like Oscar's!' I think that's great. I wish parents would be more open with their kids about disability. Often when I'm in shops and kids are staring I'll go up and explain why I have prosthetic legs. Parents are always like, 'Don't stare!' but they're stupid because they shouldn't make it a taboo. If they didn't, then kids would just be like, 'Oh, there's a guy with prosthetic legs' or 'a guy in a wheelchair'. It wouldn't be a big deal."

• Oscar Pistorius will compete in the BT Paralympic World Cup, for which he is an ambassador, on 24 May in Manchester.

It was not just fans standing yards from the world's fastest man who were banking on a burst of adrenaline from yesterday's 150m "street sprint" in Manchester, which Usain Bolt completed in a world record 14.35 seconds.

London 2012 organisers, Olympic gold medallists and international athletics chiefs were all hoping the unconventional race would help spark a wave of innovation that will bring the sport to a new, younger, hipper audience.

In the event, the triple Olympic gold-medallist Bolt did not disappoint, cruising to victory in the fastest time run over 150m, breaking the world record of 14.8 seconds which has stood since 1983. "It is one more to the tally," said Bolt. "I'm not in the best shape and I still have a lot of work to do but I am getting there."

Brendan Foster, the former athlete who established the Great North Run and came up with the idea of adding the street sprint to yesterday's Great Manchester Run, said it would help to give the sport a shot in the arm.

There are high hopes that 100m and 200m world record holder Bolt, who spent Friday at Manchester United's Carrington training ground where Cristiano Ronaldo greeted him with his trademark archer celebration, can help reconnect football-obsessed youngsters with athletics.

Foster said he was inspired in the mid-1960s by seeing Peter Snell compete at Gateshead and wanted to do the same for a new generation by bringing the likes of Bolt and Haile Gebrselassie, the Ethiopian who holds the world record for the marathon and who competed in the Great Manchester Run 10k, to the streets."Some people have criticised it, but if I stand accused of bringing the two greatest athletes of our lifetime onto the streets of Manchester, then I'm guilty," he said. The dilemma facing track and field was best highlighted by the situation in Beijing where IOC president Jaques Rogge criticised Bolt for showing a lack of respect to his fellow athletes following his victories in the 100m and 200m.

But his self assurance and memorable celebrations endeared the runner to young fans brought up on a diet of Premier League football. The IOC has called on bidding cities for the 2016 Games to come up with fresh ideas to bring the Games to a younger audience. In the hours leading up to the 6.20pm race, it had rained heavily with gusts of wind yet the foul weather did little to deter the thousands of fans who congregated in the city to watch Bolt compete in a street race on a usually traffic-clogged main thoroughfare. The crowds were six-deep and as the starting gun fired a collective silence momentarily descended and it appeared as if everyone was photographing the as the Jamaican athlete and others took off.

Joan Knight, who is of Jamaican heritage, was waving the national flag in support two hours before his race began on a specially raised platform that took a day to build but just breathless seconds for Bolt to sprint across.

She said of Bolt: "As a person he is absolutely fantastic and as a Jamaican he is out of this world. I am so happy that he is here in Manchester and I think he will be an excellent role model for young people and he will inspire them to achieve. It is so important to have this here on the street because it is free rather than being in a stadium."

In the lead up to the race, Usain Bolt spoke of the importance of street athletics in spurring young people to take up athletics: "It's unique, something new for the sport and it will help attract youngsters into athletics.

"I like to please the crowd and show them the person I am. I'm just going to go out there and have some fun with the crowd and perform to the best of my ability. If I want to be a legend, I have to keep working at it. That's what keeps me going."

EVERYONE feels the pain of a terrible loss, be it players, supporters, officials or the coaching and support staff.

AUSTRALIAN head coach Alan Thompson will leave for Switzerland tomorrow to attend a meeting that will decide the immediate fate of the sport.

A CHINESE tycoon who refuses to condemn the Tiananmen Square massacre has taken over the peak body of Australia's overseas students, the National Liaison Committee.

Olympics minister says offer from private developer was 'not a good deal' so £1.1bn village will be fully nationalised

The government today admitted that the £1.1bn Olympic Village would be fully nationalised after private sector interest in the scheme evaporated in the wake of the economic slump.

Ending months of uncertainty over the future of the east London project, the Olympics minister, Tessa Jowell, told MPs that organisers had rejected an offer from developer Lend Lease that was "not a good deal" and instead pledged to invest £650m in taxpayer's money, at least half of which it hopes to recoup by selling the flats at a later date.

During the 2012 Olympic games the village will house 3,000 athletes and officials; after, it will form the centrepiece of the regeneration plans for the area.

When it was first envisaged two years ago it was expected that the entire cost of the scheme would be borne by the private sector. But the severity of the economic slump left the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) unable to even fund a small part of the development in Stratford, east London, through the private sector.

The shadow Olympics minister, Hugh Robertson, said the development, which will be funded by a further raid on the £2bn contingency fund available to the ODA, "has to be a cause for concern".

But Jowell said the increased public investment in the Olympic Village would be partly offset by savings elsewhere and would be accounted for within the overall budget.

In all, the project will be funded by £750m from the public purse. Of that, £587m will come from the £2bn contingency fund built into the overall £9.3bn budget, with £63m reinvested from savings made elsewhere.

About £100m will come from the Homes and Communities Agency, money that the ODA argued was separate from the Olympic budget and would have been spent on affordable housing in the area anyway.

A further £168m will be borrowed from banks, including the European Investment Bank, at a commercial rate as part of a deal with Triathlon Homes to build the affordable housing element of the development.

The remainder of the budget (£147m) is being spent on converting the apartments into homes and shops.

Affordable housing will make up 30% of the final development, with the remainder sold on the open market. The government is hoping that the property market will have bounced back by 2012.

"The majority of contingency used to date has been for projects affected by the economic downturn – the village and the international broadcast centre and media press centre. Contingency required for other projects has been more than offset by savings elsewhere," said the ODA chairman, John Armitt.

"Nearly £1.3bn is left unreleased in contingency, the public sector owns a world-class asset and we remain on track to complete on time and within budget."

Much will depend on how the 2,800 units are sold and marketed. The development of 11 residential blocks will be advertised as being at the heart of a new residential district that will benefit from vastly improved transport links, a new Westfield shopping centre and the redevelopment and landscaping of the Olympic Park.

According to figures released today, the ODA has achieved a £179m reduction in overall cost forecasts. According to its latest estimates, about a quarter of the £2bn contingency fund will remain for unforeseen risks.

Jowell, who has claimed the Olympics building programme is having an effect in stimulating the economy, said a deal with Lend Lease had been tabled but was rejected.

"A private sector deal was available, but it was not a good deal," she said. "By funding the entire project the village will become publicly owned and the public purse will receive substantial returns form sales."

The ODA has not closed the door altogether on private involvement, saying it will reassess the situation as the project nears completion. In January Jowell said the £355m media centre, which will house 17,000 journalists and technicians before being converted into office space, would be funded from the public purse.

FOR about 80,000 Australians, there was no special breakfast in bed for mum on Mother's Day.

AUSTRALIAN Olympic Committee president John Coates will today urge all Games sports to adopt the strict new rules on athlete behaviour the AOC introduced in December.