I met Oscar Pistorius – he fooled everybody with his charm

When Jim White met the disgraced Paralympian, he – along with the rest of the world – was won over by Pistorius’s charisma. Now, as the ‘Blade Runner’s prison term for murder comes to an end, White asks: How could we possibly have missed his true character?

Pistorius seemed like an athlete for the ages – not just a winner, but a role model of international significance (AP)

One evening in August 2012, outside the Olympic Stadium in London, I saw something that seemed to sum up the glory of that summer’s Paralympic Games.

It was at the end of an evening of athletics, in which the South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius had won his race, hurtling round the track on his carbon fibre blades. As the crowd filed out, there was a boy of about 12 playing in the stadium’s shadow. He was wearing shorts which exposed the fact he too had blades instead of lower limbs.

He was running around in a glorious abandon, playing tag with his mates, and evading their every attempt to catch him, making everyone who passed him smile. Speaking to his father, I was told that until that summer, the lad had been embarrassed by his lack of legs, wearing long trousers to cover up his disability. Now, his dad said, thanks to Pistorius, he wanted to show the world his prowess on his newly purchased blades.