Johannesburg: Paralympic and Olympic star Oscar Pistorius, who has been venerated worldwide for his courageous fight against disability, has a rocky private life that is full of rash behaviour, and the Bladerunner is also fond of beautiful women, guns and fast cars.
The charismatic 26-year-old sprinter became the first double amputee ever to compete at an Olympics in London last year. The global celebrity and champion for disabled sport uses two carbon-fiber running blades, which earned him the soubriquet `Blade Runner` and `fastest man on no legs`.
However, Pistorius` playboy private life has courted controversy, and in 2009 he spent a night in jail after allegedly assaulting a 19-year-old woman at a party, Sport24 reports.
Pistorius` ex-girlfriend Samantha Taylor had claimed last November that the South African sprint star is certainly not what people think he actually is.
After breaking up with Taylor, Pistorius then started going out with model Reeva Steenkamp, who was found shot four times in Pistorius`s Pretoria home on Thursday.
Pistorius has also been open about his love for guns, as the sprinter told a British daily last year that he slept with a pistol, machine gun, cricket bat and baseball bat at his up market home in a secure Pretoria estate for fear of burglars, the paper reported.
Off the track, Pistorius has a passion for motorbikes, adrenalin and speed, the paper said.
Pistorius` trainer Jannie Brooks had revealed last year that the sprinter likes fast cars and every time he comes here to train, he had another car, adding he is just built for speed because the cars have an amazing performance.
Four years ago he crashed his boat in a river south of Johannesburg, breaking two ribs, an eye socket and his jaw. Empty alcohol bottles were found in the boat, but his blood alcohol content wasn`t tested.
Pistorius had been brash with reporters in the past, famously storming off the set when a BBC interviewer asked if his battles to compete in able-bodied sports weren`t an inconvenient embarrassment to athletics authorities, the paper added.
ANI
First Published: Friday, February 15, 2013, 19:16