Oscar Pistorius has shot himself in the blade.

After spending years fighting to race in leg blades against able-bodied runners at the Olympics, he complained bitterly about the artificial limbs of rivals after Sunday's shock loss at the London Paralympics.

Fuming after his first defeat over 200m in Paralympic competition, runner-up Pistorius claimed the height of the blades of Brazil's gold medallist Alan Oliveira and third-placed Blake Leeper gave them an unfair advantage.

Oliveira silenced the huge crowd by coming from a long way back to mow down the Paralympic icon and win by 0.07 seconds.

The controversy is sure to re-open the debate about the benefits of blades and potentially muddy the waters over the South African's case to compete at the Olympics.

"The IPC (International Paralympic Committee) don't want to listen," Pistorius said.

"The guys' legs are unbelievably long.

"Not taking away from Alan's performance, he's a great athlete.

"But these guys are a lot taller and you can't compete with the stride length.

"You saw how far he came back (down the home straight). We aren't racing a fair race.

"The IPC have their regulations. The regulations allow that athletes can make themselves unbelievably high. We've tried to address the issue with them in the weeks up to this and it's just been falling on deaf ears."

An athlete's blades are supposed to reflect the "natural height" of an athlete if they did have legs.

The IPC's rules are similar to those of athletics global governing body, the IAAF, which Pistorius must run under against able-bodied opposition.

However, the implementation of the rules is up for debate according to Pistorius.

He said Leeper's knee height was "four inches (10cm) higher than it should be".

"The guys are just running ridiculous times and they're able to do so," he said.

The outburst could end up having financial consequences for Pistorius, who was greeted with thunderous support by the British crowd before the race.

The South African, who reached the 400m semi-finals last month at the London Olympics, has cultivated a worldwide following because of his inspiring and controversial path to becoming an Olympian.

Via a carefully-scripted statement on Monday morning, Pistorius said he was sorry for taking the gloss off Oliveira's victory.

"I want to apologise for the timing of my comments after yesterday's race," he said.

"I do believe that there is an issue here and I welcome the opportunity to discuss with the IPC but I accept that raising these concerns immediately as I stepped off the track was wrong.

"That was Alan's moment and I would like to put on record the respect I have for him."

Pistorius earns more than $1 million a year from endorsements but this sort of publicity could hit his good guy image, no matter how justified he felt.

Oliveira rejected Pistorius's claims.

"I get upset to hear this kind of thing," said the Brazilian.

"I'm inside the rules."

Pistorius was initially banned from running at the 2008 Olympics because of concerns his blades provided him with an unfair advantage.

That ban was overturned at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) although he failed to meet the qualifying standard for Beijing.

He won a silver medal as part of South Africa's 4x400m relay team at last year's world title in Daegu before competing in London.

The normally gregarious Pistorius looked to be still stewing on Sunday night's events at the 200m medal ceremony on Monday morning.

In bright sunshine, he looked a far from happy as the 20-year-old Oliveira collected the gold medal and set himself up to be one of the faces of the 2016 Rio Paralympics.