Oscar planned to retire in 2017 – manager

“At this point in time all contracts were officially terminated,” Petrus van Zyl said.

“Companies stated publicly that their association with Mr Pistorius had been terminated.”

He said prior to the shooting in Pistorius’s Pretoria home on Valentine’s Day last year the athlete indicated he would retire from athletics in 2017.

Van Zyl said he was negotiating new contracts for Pistorius up until 2017 and the last talks were on February 7, 2013 — a week before Steenkamp was shot.

“The anticipated financial benefit [of the contracts] was substantial,” he said.

Speaking about Pistorius’s future before the shooting, Van Zyl said: “If I can use the term bright it will be an understatement.”

He said in February 2013 Pistorius was going to be announced as a global ambassador for a company, and in March for another company.

Pistorius and Van Zyl had not discussed his return to athletics since Steenkamp was shot and were waiting for the outcome of the trial.

“We have not discussed any further possibilities. We took the decision at the beginning that I can’t do anything until we know what the outcome of this case is.”

Barry Roux, for Pistorius, said he had one witness left. Sentencing proceedings were adjourned until Tuesday.

On September 12 Pistorius was found guilty of the culpable homicide of Steenkamp, but not guilty of her murder.

Pistorius had claimed he thought there was a burglar in his toilet when he fired four shots through the locked door in the early hours of February 14 last year, killing Steenkamp. The State had argued he killed her during an argument.

Judge Thokozile Masipa also found him guilty of discharging a firearm in public, when he shot from his friend Darren Fresco’s Glock pistol under a table at Tasha’s restaurant in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, in January 2013.

Pistorius was found not guilty on two firearms-related charges — illegal possession of ammunition, and shooting through the open sunroof of a car with his 9mm pistol while driving with friends in Modderfontein on September 30, 2012.

– Sapa