By the summer of 2012, few public figures were more widely admired than South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius.
The "Blade Runner" had captured the world's attention by becoming the first double-amputee to compete against able-bodied runners in the Summer Olympics, his show of speed on a set of J-shaped prostheses providing undeniable proof of how the human will could triumph over adversity.
And while the story of his ascent was stunning, so too was the news that he had killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp the following February, setting up a fall from grace that one South African judge would later deem a "human tragedy of Shakespearean proportions."
