HUNDREDS of autographs signed. As many impressionable minds inspired. And a trip to Stirling Castle that satisfied his architectural curiosity. Not a bad weekend's endeavours for Oscar Pistorius, overall.
The only blip, as such, for the South African was his narrow failure to land victory in the Scottish Athletics Championships yesterday at Pitreavie, his third place in the 200 metres, in an unremarkable time of 22.20 seconds, almost an anti-climax gi
ven the understandable hype surrounding his appearance here.
The Blade Runner cut through it, however. "That was only the fourth time I've done the 200 metres in the last four years, excluding the Paralympics," stated the winner of three gold medals last year in Beijing.
"For me it was a great opportunity to come and have a bit of fun. I was a bit disappointed with the first 80 metres but I was very comfortable. And at the end of the day, I specialise in the 400."
Not even an encouraging text from one of South Africa's Lion tamers could spur him to a win as young Scots prospect Ryan Oswald instead claimed the spoils. "I had a text from (Springbok winger] Bryan Habana saying 'good luck in your race. We did our part yesterday, now you have to do yours by winning'." He did not quite match the Springboks but he did much else.
Elsewhere, Henrietta Paxton claimed a new Scottish pole vault record of 4.06m on Saturday, but fell short in her attempt to clear the Commonwealth Games qualifying mark of 4.15.
"I'm really glad I've got the Scottish record and I'm happy I did it here in Scotland," she said. "The Commonwealth standard is easily there. I just need to pull it all together."
Lennie Waite, freshly graduated from Rice University in Texas, marked her competitive debut in the land of her birth with a native best of 10mins 19.21secs in the 3000m steeplechase.
Susan McKelvie threw an impressive 59.33m to win the hammer but Gemma Nicol narrowly failed to complete the 200-400 double within an hour, citing fatigue as she trailed in second to Stacey Downie in the shorter distance. "I felt really tired and it was probably asking too much," the local heroine said. "My focus was really on making sure I'm at my peak in three weeks' time (for the British championships]. This was more a training outing."
So too for Morag MacLarty, who retained the 1500m title, ahead of Freya Murray. Nevertheless, the Liz McColgan-coached prospect concedes her build-up towards Birmingham is way behind schedule after losing a month of training due to injury. The discipline, she acknowledged, is getting deeper by the week with Anglo-Scot Steph Twell leading the Brit-pack.
"If I hadn't had four weeks out, I might have been up there," MacLarty said. "But it's just really bad timing."
We could say the same about the event itself. With Scotland's top performers always destined to be engaged on Great Britain duty in the European Team Championships this weekend, it was an inexplicably poor piece of scheduling to create a clash of dates.
Shorn of proven performers, it was left to the trio of Australian Olympians lured here to infuse an additional touch of class with a victorious trifecta. Collis Birmingham cruised clear to take the 1500m for the third consecutive year, Nick Bromley barely broke sweat in the 800, while Benita Johnson ended a two-year hiatus from track competition with victory in the women's 5000m.
It was a deliberately low-key excursion for the former world cross country champion who has been battling back from a traumatic 2008. Johnson, whose sister Caitlin is in the Australia team for the world championships, remains intent on joining her in Berlin but admitted her focus has changed.
"If I don't have enough time to qualify it doesn't matter," she said. "I got a few injuries after Beijing. I lost my father. I got divorced. So a lot of things in my life were tough.
"I've been in Newcastle the past few months working on the Tesco Great School Run. It's volunteer work so it's been more about putting something back while I've been getting my fitness back."
