BT PWC 2012: Pistorius looking ominous ahead of biggest year

By Paul Eddison and Nicolas Atkin in Manchester, Sportsbeat

THE FASTEST man on no legs began the biggest season of his life in imperious fashion as he cruised to victory at the BT Paralympic World Cup.

BLADE RUNNER: Oscar Pistorius was in top form as he claimed BT Paralympic World Cup gold in Manchester

In 2012 Oscar Pistorius is set to be the only man to compete at both the Olympics and Paralympics in London and in his first outing of the season he left his rivals trailing to claim T43 200m gold in Manchester in a time of 22.08.

Pistorius will defend his 100m, 200m and 400m titles at the Paralympics and admitted he could not have hoped for a better start to the season than success in Manchester.

He said: "I think everything went according to plan, there wasn't one aspect of the race that went badly. I came out of the blocks comfortably, accelerated neatly, my angles on the corners were fine and the home straight was neat but I felt maybe I could have gone a bit quicker. I really enjoyed the competition, though.

"It is always a great pleasure to come here and start my season off, every year we come up to Manchester for the BT Paralympic World Cup which is always the opener for me. It was a great opening race and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to settle in nicely after this."

While Pistorius stole the headlines with his display, he wasn't the only man to produce a world class performance in Manchester.

American Jeremy Campbell broke Dan Greaves' world record in the discus as he smashed the 60m-barrier to throw 62.18.

That was more than two metres further than Greaves' record-breaking throw set in Florida last year and makes Campbell a strong contender for gold in less than 100 days.

Meanwhile in the women's T42/43/44 100m there were two world records for Marlou Van Rhijn and Martina Caironi in the T43 and T42 respectively.

Van Rhijn, who won gold in the 200m, came home in 13.58 with Caironi beating the world mark with a time of 16.25.

The BT Paralympic World Cup is taking place in Manchester from 22-26 May with elite international athletes competing in Athletics, Football 7-aside and Wheelchair Basketball. Go to www.btparalympicworldcup.com for tickets and more information.

© Sportsbeat 2012