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Bobby Kersee, her famous coach. “She’s
like the li le horse that no one thinks will
win. But when you put her next to a big
horse, she’s not intimidated, and passes
them. She’s a thoroughbred.”
WHEN LINING UP
at the start, the wispy
Felix hardly looks menacing. Her spindly
legs press into the blocks, dwarfed by her
competitors’ rippling thighs. She looks
less like a sprinter than a distance runner
whoaccidentallywandered into thewrong
event—that is, until the gun sounds for
the 200-meter. Felix glides around the
curve and down the homestretch, usually
leaving other runners grimacing in her
wake. On her best days, Felix says, run-
ning halfway around the track at almost
20miles anhour feels as fluid and peaceful
as floating. “She looks so relaxed, it’s almost
as though she’s not pu ing much effort
into it,” says Wes Felix, her brother and
manager. “You can’t teach that.”
That effortless stride wasn’t evident
when she was growing up in Los Angeles,
the daughter of a third-grade teacher
and an ordained minister. “She was a
li le clumsy up through middle school,”
Wes says. “She barely won her races. I
would have never guessed she would be
a 30-year-old Dutch mother of two, won the 100 and 200, the
80-meter hurdles and the relay. (She might have won more, but a
rule limitedwomen to just three individual events in track and field.)
She eventually set 16world records in eight different events.
»
In
1960
in Rome,Wilma
Rudolph set a new record for the 200, doing it in 23.2 seconds; she went on to win
two other golds, making her the first U.S. woman to win three in one Olympic Games.
»
In
1968
, Mexico City’s high altitude helped pave the way for world records in all
the men’s races under 400 meters, plus the long jump and triple jump. While the ’68
Games were the first in which the winners had to undergo a doping test,
they are rememberedmost for the raised-fist “black power” salute of
Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos, gold and bronze winners
in the 200, during the medal ceremony. The two were subsequently
kicked out of the Olympic Village.
»
In
1984
in Los Angeles, Carl Lewis
matched the achievement of Jesse Owens, winning gold medals in the same four
events: 100, 200, relay and long jump. In
1988
, Lewis went on to win gold
in the long jump and the 100.
»
In
1996
at the Atlanta Games, U.S.
sprinterMichael Johnson became the firstman inOlympic history to
run—andwin—both the 200 and 400. His time in the 200 (19.32 seconds)
set a new world record and earned him the title “World’s Fastest Man.”
Alas, it was not to last: The record was broken in
2008
by the absurdly fast Jamaican
Usain Bolt, who did it in 19.30 at the Beijing Games.
Compiled by Michelle Bangert
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