The time from the 23-year-old, the sixth fastest this year, easily surpassed the Olympic A Standard qualification time of 45.25 but James Evans, the President of Athletics South Africa (ASA), revealed that Pistorius will need to better the time once again to compete in the Olympic Games next year.

"With regard to the Olympics, the agreement ASA has with SASCOC (the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee) is that the athletes will have to run the qualifying time twice," said Evans.

The ASA President also revealed that while Pistorius is highly likely to compete at the World Championships in Daegu next month after the race in Italy, it is not yet a certainty that he will be there.

Athletes have until early next month to qualify for the competition in Daegu with only the three fastest 400m runners from each country selected.

Pistorius now has the second-fastest South African one-lap time behind LJ Van Zyl's 44.86, although Van Zyl's speciality is the 400m hurdles so he will not run the 400m flat in Daegu.

With Van Zyl out the way, Pistorius has three real rivals for a place in the 400m at Daegu with Lebogang Moeng, who has a season's best of 45.47, Ofentse Mogawane with 45.59 and Willem de Beer 45.68 all looking to better Pistorius' time to claim a place at the World Championships.

However, the likelihood of all three bettering the time set by Pistorius in the next month, which is the only occurrence that would see Pistorius miss out on the event, is highly unlikely.

Pistorius himself though, is not concerned about his South African rivals and said he is already looking to better the A standard again before the World Championships.

"I'd like to run a couple more A times before the worlds," he said.

"It's been 18 months to two years of hard work to get here but you have to keep training, keep working.

"I'm very excited."

Pistorius will be in the mix for the 4x400m relay final, if South Africa qualify in Korea, although Evans said he would have to do the first leg of the relay to avoid shoving with other athletes, something that could damage his prosthetic legs.

"If Oscar runs in the relay, he will have to run in the first leg because the rest of the race is no lanes and there is the risk of him being bumped because it is a physical race," said Evans.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related stories
July 2011: Pistorius can start dreaming of London 2012 after clocking Olympic qualifying time
June 2011: Exclusive - London 2012 Olympic qualification remains realistic for Pistorius claims coach Louw
June 2011: Pistorius and Smyth face race against time to make World Championship qualifying times
June 2011: Pistorius aims for London 2012 Olympic qualification in the Big Apple
May 2011: Pistorious produces golden performance at Paralympic World Cup