Runs Like a Gazelle

Athletics staff at a small mid-West college recruit a jolly ex-Eastern Bloc coach passed over by everybody else to train a fleet-of-foot deliveryman from the poor side of town for a big State track meet.

A fun story in the vein of "Rocky" or "The Karate Kid". The sport in question is the men's 100 meter sprint, the winner of which is often named "the fastest man in the world".

Normally the domain of powerful athletes with years of dedicated training behind them, this pinnacle of sprinting has never experienced a truly "Beamonesque" moment. That's an adjective inspired by Bob Beamon's miraculous, record-shattering feat in the 1968 Olympics - an 8% improvement in a record that wasn't matched for a quarter of a century.

In a world where records are incremented by millimeters and milliseconds, could such an awe-inspiring, out-of-the-blue event occur in the 100 meters - from someone you'd never expect to do it?

Dettagli