Sport is all about rising to the challenge, whether it is laid down by your own limitations, the prowess of your opposition or the magnitude of the event; to win you have to have the ability to overcome. Though it may be years in the creation, for many sportspeople their chance to win is minutes or even seconds long. The efforts of a champion marksman, a field athlete in their throes or a sprinter might be a fleeting experience by which they are indelibly remembered and admired.

Oscar Pistorius is, however, in another category where he has always tenaciously had to overcome. Most obviously, he was born with a severe condition that left his lower legs unable to develop. Within months his parents had taken the decision for him to have an operation to amputate both limbs below the knee. Pistorius was too young to remember and has never had anything other than prosthetics with which to walk. But as persistently and permanently as his condition has affected him, I don't think that coping with it has been his most remarkable achievement.

When I met him in South Africa he was putting the finishing touches to his bachelor pad north of Johannesburg. It is a fitting reward for one of South Africa's premier sportsmen, a mixture of boyish fantasy and classical flair. Motorbikes jostle for space in the garage while carefully chosen and commissioned art crowds the wall spaces.

But the directions for his present life are set much farther back in his childhood. He lost his mother to an allergic reaction when he was 15. He has since had her birth and death dates tattooed on his inner arm. “Growing up, my mother was a huge influence,” he said. “I wouldn't be the person I am today without her. She died two or three years before I started running and yet three weeks before she died she wrote a letter in which she said, ‘Look after those legs that run so fast, train don't strain.' She was a wise woman and the lessons she taught me have helped in the last few years.”

Relatively speaking, the running part of Oscar's life has been easy. He turned his outdoor upbringing and love of sport in general into athletics after a rugby injury affected his legs and sentenced him to an enforced period of inactivity.

When he took to the track for the first time he lowered the bilateral amputee world record for 100metres by half a second. He triumphed in the 200metres in the 2004 Paralympics in Athens within a year and, always wanting to stretch himself, began to compete alongside able-bodied athletes in 2005.

With his speed and his ability it wasn't long before he began to make waves. He became far more famous for the discussion over his attempts to run in the Beijing Olympics last year than both his Paralympic campaigns combined.

By the end of 2007 the IAAF had tested and banned him from taking part in able-bodied competition, citing that it felt that the artificial running legs he used gave him an unfair advantage over other athletes. Where every other athlete was using the time to hone their talents ready for the Olympic summer of 2008, Pistorius organised a legal challenge to the ban.

After a lengthy retesting process and court case, in May 2008 the Court of Arbitration for Sport settled the matter, allowing him to compete in Beijing on his prosthetic legs. He failed to reach the qualifying time for the 400 metres of the Olympics by just over half a second. It was almost the first time that Pistorius had failed at anything.

Seemingly, however, Pistorius is not even content beating opponents that other people put in his way. In February of this year his next hurdle was almost entirely of his making. “We had a weekend in February and my friend and I decided to go to the river, just chilling out on my boat,” he said. “We'd just left the yacht club and were going down the river at about 25 kilometres an hour and we hit a pier under the water because of the rain. I broke my cheekbone, the floorbone of my eye, the bridge of my nose and had my jaw wired shut.”

The police opened a criminal case over the influence of alcohol in the accident but dropped it within a fortnight. The papers had a field day. “It's just part of being a sportsman,” Pistorius said with a shrug. “I'm very lucky. If we were going any faster it could have been very different.”

The BT Paralympic World Cup that starts in Manchester on Wednesday is the first step for the 2009 season for Pistorius and while the 22-year-old is cagey about his chances this season and for 2012, his coach, Ampe Louw, is direct and open.

“He is a typical champion,” he said. “He knows what he wants and I can help him get there. We stopped last season at 46.2 [for the 400 metres] and we'll run out of time again this season.

“I've worked out the progression from 46 seconds. He must run 45.4 to qualify for London [in the 2012 Games] and it's realistic to be on the Olympic rostrum if he can run sub-44.”

Despite pressing, Pistorius won't be drawn. “I'd like to know that I've done my best, utilised my best,” he said.

“Realistically I know that I'd never win the Olympics.”

But suddenly the biggest achievement for Pistorius becomes clear. It has nothing to do with the past; with legs, or rules, or boats, or family. It's yet to come; in August in London in 2012 if he reaches his personal pinnacle and stands alongside other athletes on the Olympic rostrum. At that point he can look back on years of achievement.

World Cup lowdown

- The fifth BT Paralympic World Cup will be staged in Manchester from Wednesday to next Monday.

- More than 400 athletes from 31 countries will compete in four sports: athletics and wheelchair basketball at the Manchester Regional Arena, swimming at the Manchester Aquatics Centre and track cycling at the Manchester Velodrome.

- Tickets are on sale and can be purchased via the event website: btparalympicworldcup.com or the ParalympicsGB website: paralympics.org.uk or by calling 0844 8471622. Tickets cost £3 per session.

- The BBC, the official television partner to the event, will broadcast live from the Manchester Aquatics Centre next Monday.

Words by Matthew Pryor