Oscar Pistorious

bamboozling

I don't get all the hype, he's nothing special as a runner, yet he get's all the hype.

Watching Channel 4 interviewing Van Zyl after the race, 1 question about the race and 3 regarding Pistorious.

Who cares if he didn't start he the South Africans got a silver medal. Perfectly justifiable decision.

Fair play to Pistorious but there is so many great champions out there that never get a sliver of the hype Pistorious gets. It's not right.

death1234567

bamboozling wrote: »

I don't get all the hype.

In case you hadn't noticed he doesn't have legs. That's why he gets so much attention. It was the same thing when Annika sorenstam was the first professional female golfer to compete with men. She wasn't any good but still got all the attention. The media are attracted to sportspeople who make a good story.

bamboozling

death1234567 wrote: »

In case you hadn't noticed he doesn't have legs. That's why he gets so much attention. It was the same thing when Annika sorenstam was the first professional female golfer to compete with men. She wasn't any good but still got all the attention.

Still doesn't make it right. It's like a circus act to draw attention. How many people know who Dwight Phillips, an athletics legend is, and compare that to Pistorius who has achived little in major athletics championships.

BobMac104

its just life really. something out of the ordinary will get the attention.

Meesared

For gods sake give the man some credit, hes the first disabled athlete to hold his own against able bodied athletes, and its a major milestone.

robinph

Meesared wrote: »

For gods sake give the man some credit, hes the first disabled athlete to hold his own against able bodied athletes, and its a major milestone.

Natalie Du Toit?

myflipflops

bamboozling wrote: »

Still doesn't make it right. It's like a circus act to draw attention. How many people know who Dwight Phillips, an athletics legend is, and compare that to Pistorius who has achived little in major athletics championships.

The thing is, it's not like Pistorius the publicity Pistorius gets is taking any attention away from guys like Dwight Phillips. it's all just extra media attention on the sport. Take Pistorius away and it goes with him to the next story deemed to be of public interest, not the next athletics story.

ecoli

myflipflops wrote: »

The thing is, it's not like Pistorius the publicity Pistorius gets is taking any attention away from guys like Dwight Phillips. it's all just extra media attention on the sport. Take Pistorius away and it goes with him to the next story deemed to be of public interest, not the next athletics story.

Would agree with this. Though these "interest" angles hook people it stil gives the sport some much needed exposure. I wonder how many more people watched the 400ms as a result of Pistorious taking part.

Characters create interest in the sport, Bolt, Isinbayeva, Pistorious, Bekele we need to get more athletes who become identifiable outside the sport. these characters create interest in the event and as such have knock on effect in the sport as a whole

This is not a new trend. I wonder how many people know who John Landy is outside of athletics fans yet everyone knows the name of Roger Bannister despite Landy improving his world record only 3 weeks later and in many peoples opinion given same circumstances as Bannister would have broken the 4 min barrier long before.

donothoponpop

ecoli wrote: »

Though these "interest" angles hook people it stil gives the sport some much needed exposure.

As proof of this, look no further than the BBC sports webpage, titled "World Athletics 2011: Oscar Pistorius wins relay silver". It's a grabber headline, designed to get a casual observer to click the link. The body of the article is fairly well written, and explains the situation accurately enough for the reading sports fan. Any casual observer with only a passing interest in Athletics, would know the Pistorius backstory and be interested. By reading beyond the headline, they will increase their knowledge of 4x400m (and by extension, athletics). Had it said "SA silver in 4x400m", less people would click the link and read the story.

nerraw1111

He’s the fastest man on no legs.