The Thrill-A-Second Rush

If athletics is the quintessential Olympic sport, then the sprints are the piece de resistance of the track and field programme. From Jesse Owens down to Carl Lewis, even the greatest of all-round athletes have found themselves celebrated principally for their skills over the shortest of racing distances. An OFF-BEAT LOOK at why sprints are so fascinating.

- Nirmal Shekar

Although man has always been awed by speed and has attached a near-superhuman aura to the speed merchants in all areas of human activity — from the ones who inhabited caves and chased animals on a breakfast run through to the gunslingers who were the quickest on the draw — the appeal and influence of speed has never been as widespread and universal as it is today.

Speed, after all, is the leitmotiv of the era in which we live. Anybody who is a somebody in this world, and anybody who dreams of becoming a somebody, has to necessarily worship at the altar of speed at one time or the other in this age of the Concorde and the Bullet Train.

AND SPORT IS NOT ONLY LIFE in miniature but it also adds a new dimension to speed and its influence. What is true of life is true of sport too, but only in a much more emphatic way. Especially so as we reach the turn of a century.

These are days of 142 mph serves in tennis, 95 mph deliveries from bowlers and over 130 mph laps by Formula One drivers. This is an era in which technology has redefined the meaning of speed and power in almost every sport and the redefining is something of a continuing process. Things that were thought of as impossible before the birth of the 21st century— a sub 9.9 in 100m or an 8.95 metre long jump—are now part of history.

On the choked city roads in most parts of our over-crowded world, speed may kill more than it thrills, but in sport speed is often synonymous with excitement, both for the performer and for the spectator.

“THE FEELING OF RUNNING fast is unforgettable. The exhilaration you feel round a bend, it’s like you’re in charge, you are a Ferrari,” says the former British sprinter Alan Wells, who won the 100m dash in the 1980 Moscow Olympics.