Featured Image Credit: British Athletics/British Athletics via Getty Images/Francois Nel/Getty Images
Topics: Paralympics, Sport
Ella Scott
Topics: Paralympics, Sport
An athlete once caused sports fans to spin into confusion after successfully smashing a Paralympic world record despite not finishing first in the race.
Arnu Fourie is a double Paralympic medalist and single amputee.
At 18 years old, the athlete was a keen rugby player and had been offered a contract to play rugby union professionally for the South African Golden Lions.
However, it’s said he later lost all interest in sports after becoming involved in a boating propeller accident, causing him to lose his left leg below the knee.
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Arnu had taken a trip to Rustfonteindam, just outside of Bloemfontein, with his best friends when his leg became stuck under a boat.
"It was a split second from realising that the boat was not going to stop,” he recounted to Beeconectar. “After my leg got stuck under the boat I knew that my leg was amputated.”
For three years, Arnu kept his disability under wraps and later began to play golf before beginning to run competitively in 2007.
A year later he made his Paralympic debut at the Beijing Summer Games, where he came fourth in the 100m and sixth in the 200m.
Four years later, Arnu returned to the Paralympics in London.
At the 2012 event, he won bronze in the 100m T44 race, gold for South Africa in the 4x100m - T42-46 relay and placed fourth in the 200m T44 final.
During his heat for the T44 200m, the athlete set a world record despite finishing second to Team USA star Blake Leeper.
Fans were initially left puzzled by the decision to award Arnu the world record title for his 22.57-second finish over the University of Tennessee alumni.
However, it turns out Arnu had beaten his classification’s world record but Blake, a T43 athlete, hadn’t smashed his.
According to Tony Garrett, former disability executive of BBC Sport, double amputee Blake would have raced with the T44 athletes because there wouldn’t have been enough T43 athletes to hold their own heat.
So although Blake topped the heat, he didn’t do enough to break the T43 record at the time.
"It's an oddity but it does occasionally happen," added Tony.
Arnu held the record until London 2012 400m bronze medallist David Prince took the crown off him the following year.