Oscar Pistorius Parents: Meet Sheila Pistorius & Eunice Van Wyk

Oscar Pistorius is the son of Sheila Pistorius and Eunice Van Wyk. Oscar credits his mother, who died at the age of 43 when he was 15 years old, as a major influence in his life.

Pistorius is from an Afrikaner family with partial Italian ancestry from his maternal great grandfather who was an Italian emigrant to Kenya. Afrikaans is his mother tongue and he is also fluent in English.

Both of Oscar Pistorius’s feet were amputated when he was 11 months old owing to a congenital defect; he was born missing the outside of both feet and both fibulae.

At the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, he was the first amputee to win a non-disabled world track medal. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, he was the first double-leg amputee participant.