My parents didn't give me any scope to feel sorry for myself. They were just like 'go play with your brother, go climb a tree, go fall off your motorbike, do whatever you want. Don't come crying to us when you get scratched. You've got prosthetic legs - that's very nice.

Oscar Pistorius is on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which disability becomes ability, disadvantage becomes advantage. Yet we mustn't lose sight of what makes an athlete great. It's too easy to credit Pistorius' success to technology. Through birth or circumstance, some are given certain gifts, but it's what one does with those gifts, the hours devoted to training, the desire to be the best, that is at the true heart of a champion.

These have always been my legs. I train harder than other guys, eat better, sleep better and wake up thinking about athletics. I think that's probably why I'm a bit of an exception.

I'd like to show people that if you put the hard work in and you believe in yourself, then you can do whatever you want to.

You're not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have.

I can have my goals, and I can have my dreams. My goal is to make the finals and improve my position. I want to run all decent races. I don't want to look back and say I ran a terrible race.

I don't want to be competing in a sport where I feel that I'm here not on my talent and my hard work but because of a piece of equipment.