"Don't focus on the disability," Oscar Pistorius told the world before these Games. "Focus on the ability." In the end there was no room for sentimental thoughts or emotional considerations. The T44 200m final was not a procession, nor a coronation, but a race, raw and fast. And Pistorius lost. He was beaten to the line by Brazil's Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira winning in a time of 21.45sec.

Pistorius was .07sec behind him. He reacted angrily, saying "we are not racing a fair race". He claimed that Oliveira's running blades were too long, breaking regulations, and calling for the International Paralympic Committee to investigate.

Pistorius was furious that he had been denied the hat-trick of titles. He has come along way since he won this title for the first time in 2004, and this was supposed to be his peak. Back then he was, in his own words, "a young kid with braces and curly hair". He had only been running for a year or so, having been forced to give up rugby after he shattered his knee while playing in a school match. He has changed more still since he won it for a second time, in Beijing in 2008. He is leaner, sharper, and faster, having lost 11kg.

Early in 2009 Pistorius was badly injured in a boating accident. He spent five days in intensive care. It changed his attitude. Before that, he had only dreamed of being an elite athlete. After it, he started to live and train like one. He is not the only one. Oliveira, 20, had his legs amputated at an early age.

Around them, behind them as he crossed the line, were six other men, each with their own stories and struggles. At least one of them wouldn't have been here at all had it not been for Pistorius. Germany's David Behre, running in lane one, was hit by a freight train at a level crossing in September 2007. He was cycling home from a party, late at night. The doctors at the Duisburg Trauma Centre amputated both his legs. The day after the operation, Behre watched a documentary about Pistorius as he lay in his hospital bed, and he thought to himself "maybe I can do that too". When he first heard that story, Pistorius says he thought: "I wish that hadn't happened to you." Not out of pity, he explained, but because "he is quick, and quite a threat in the 200m."

There is a little truth in that joke. The only labels Pistorius wants to claim for himself are those of "athlete", and "champion", he has never wanted to be known as disabled, differently-abled, a role model, an inspiration, or any other of the many tags people have given him in his career. He rejects the idea that he is a pioneer.

"I have just been hard working and talented enough to compete on an international level," he says. "I did not do this to open the doors. The doors have always been open."

And others have been through them. He is not the first Paralympian to cross over into the Olympics, only the most famous. Back in 2006, when Pistorius was competing in the International Paralympic World Cup, obituaries were being written for Neroli Fairhall, who died that year, aged 61. She was a paraplegic who competed in archery for New Zealand at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

There have been others too. The partially-blind runner Marla Runyon finished eighth in the 1,500m for the USA at the 2000 Olympics. Natalia Partyka, a table tennis player who was born without a right forearm, represented Poland at the Olympics in both 2008 and 2012. And Pistorius' own teammate Natalie du Toit, who lost her left leg after being hit by a car, swam in the open water marathon in Beijing.

None of them were blessed with the rewards that Pistorius has found. Estimates suggest that he is earning around $2m a year in sponsorship, through his deals with BT, Nike, Oakley, and others. That ranks him fifth on the list of his sport's highest earners, a long way behind Usain Bolt but pretty much on a par with anyone else. Other than the fact that he has a savvy agent and a photogenic smile, the difference between Pistorius and those who came before him is that the governing body of his sport, the IAAF, tried to stand in his way.

For four months, between December 2007 and March 2008, the running blades Pistorius uses were illegal in able-bodied competition. The decision was apparently borne out of genuine doubt about whether or not he had an unfair advantage. Aimee Mullins, a double amputee herself and the chef de mission of the USA's Paralympic team at these Games, was just one who suspected that other motivations were at work. "If we allow a person who we view as our inferior to play with us, and then that person beats us, what does that say about us?" The controversy catapulted him on to the front pages. But Pistorius turns surly when the topic comes up now. After all the hours spent arguing his case in laboratories and courtrooms, he has no desire to restate his case now. The blades he uses now are the same ones he was on then, though the manufacturer has given improved models, explicitly designed to cope with running around bends, to his rivals. It was an ironic twist that he responded to this defeat by attacking his rival, just as others once attacked him.

• This article was amended on 3 September 2012. The original said that Oliveira was born without fibula bones. That is true of Pistorius, not Oliveira.