\u201cAMERICA\u2019S NEED FOR SPEED\u201d is the title of this issue\u2019s lead article, which segues into the previews of both Olympic Trials 100-meter races. Eugene may have built its reputation as a distance-running community, but when the first weekend of this year\u2019s OT rolls around, it\u2019ll be all about speed, baby.<\/p>\n
You can count me among the ranks of those who awaits the dashes perhaps more than any other races. Yet it was not always so. In my formative years as a fan, while I eagerly embraced all disciplines I had no special interest in watching the sprints. Perhaps it had something to do with my own frustrating lack of true speed. I was fast enough in my little corner of the world\u2014to always be an also-ran. Especially frustrating was that more than once I got accused of intentionally losing. Something to do with the bizarre concept\u2014the inverse of the usual\u2014that I was \u201cdeceptively slow.\u201d<\/p>\n
But my sprint flames were fanned for the first time when as a teenager I saw my first ever in-person World Record: a 9.1 for 100 yards by Harry Jerome. My fandom was undoubtedly helped by the fact that he was staying in the university dorm room next to mine (yes, there was a time when 25-year-old \u201cpros\u201d actually stayed in dorm rooms instead of fancy hotels) and that evening he broke out a bottle of Jack Daniels (or was it Wild Turkey?) and we had a few celebratory toasts.<\/p>\n
What really sold me on the hundred as the best of all races was when I began my announcing career at the Olympics and World Championships. When at those meets solely on magazine duty, I was usually so busy that I skipped most of the morning sessions, meaning that I missed \u201cmeaningless\u201d early rounds.<\/p>\n
But guess what? If you pay attention, the heats and quarterfinals aren\u2019t meaningless at all. Sure, they are if you view them as easy run-throughs that only serve to eliminate the 12-flat guys from Klopstockia. But there\u2019s more, so much more.<\/p>\n
Focusing on the favorites\u2014like in Gay vs. Powell last year\u2014starts not in the final, but a day earlier, in the heats. You watch each of them, hoping for a clue as to which is looking better. Which one is perhaps overextending himself by laying down the gauntlet too early? Which one is sandbagging, running far beneath his capacity? Who\u2019s the dark horse that you realize might be capable of stealing it from both of them?<\/p>\n
Having three chances to watch these plotlines unfold before the final makes for a cliff-hanging serial worth showing at the Saturday matinee.<\/p>\n