{"id":9913,"date":"2012-04-14T04:12:11","date_gmt":"2012-04-14T02:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/04\/athletics-olympic-hopeful-pistorius-scrapes-into-national-final\/"},"modified":"2012-04-14T04:12:11","modified_gmt":"2012-04-14T02:12:11","slug":"athletics-olympic-hopeful-pistorius-scrapes-into-national-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/athletics-olympic-hopeful-pistorius-scrapes-into-national-final\/","title":{"rendered":"Athletics-Olympic hopeful Pistorius scrapes into national final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">April 13<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Double amputee Oscar Pistorius scraped<br \/>\ninto the 400 metres final at the South African championships on<br \/>\nFriday saying he did not feel the need to push himself in the<br \/>\nheats.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pistorius, who wants to become the first amputee athlete to<br \/>\ncompete at an Olympics, looked at ease when finishing second in<br \/>\na time of 48.34 seconds in his heat.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>He then placed fourth in the semi-final with 47.91 behind<br \/>\ntop qualifier Lebogang Moeng (46.69) at a windy Nelson Mandela<br \/>\nUniversity in Port Elizabeth.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d like to finish in the top three tomorrow. Lebogang is<br \/>\nin good shape, he went out very hard in the semi and the heat. I<br \/>\ndon&#8217;t know, that&#8217;s not the tactic I would have chosen,&#8221;<br \/>\nPistorius told reporters.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s nothing to prove by winning a semi.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Tomorrow is going to be quite a tough day. Coming out of<br \/>\nthe 300 today, I was in second place very comfortably. I didn&#8217;t<br \/>\nsee a need to push it,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The 25-year-old sprinter, who uses carbon fibre prosthetic<br \/>\nrunning blades, dipped below the Olympic qualifying time of<br \/>\n45.30 in Pretoria last month, clocking 45.20.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>He needs to repeat that performance in an international<br \/>\nmeeting in order to qualify for the South African team.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Pistorius has a busy international schedule planned in order<br \/>\nto meet qualifying standard for the London Games, which start in<br \/>\nJuly.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll find out soon whether I&#8217;ll be running in Doha on May<br \/>\n11. I&#8217;m waiting for them to get back to us. Ostrava is<br \/>\nguaranteed on the 25th, Hengelo is confirmed on the 27th in the<br \/>\nNetherlands. On June 4 it is the Prefontaine Classic in Oregon<br \/>\nand on the 11th is the Diamond League in New York,&#8221; said<br \/>\nPistorius.\t<\/p>\n<p> (Writing by Jason Humphries in Durban; Editing By Alison<br \/>\nWildey)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>April 13 (Reuters) &#8211; Double amputee Oscar Pistorius scraped into the 400 metres final at the South African championships on Friday saying he did not feel the need to push himself in the heats. Pistorius, who wants to become the first amputee athlete to compete at an Olympics, looked at ease when finishing second in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-9913","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}