The Fastest Man Alive

Standing behind his starting blocks Usain Bolt felt the legs of all the greatest sprinters in history in his – in particular the long, sinewy Carl Lewis’ strides that sucks up track spaghetti; the explosive fast-twitch fibers of Ben Johnson still carrying residual traces of the banned substance stanozolol. For a moment he thought he saw the shadow of Leroy Burrell’s huge quads in place of his, like a pair of bullocks their shadows casting a silhouette of warning across the other lanes. They would just be also-rans; he thought of his competitors. They don’t have it in them.   

When he tripped at ten metres, his hands stretched involuntarily out in front of him. The impact of knees fused molten track rubber with flesh, but he felt nothing; his legs were no longer his. Asapha Powell surged past in the outside lane and licked his lips, seeming to smell the wound.

In his sinking heart he knew it was the end. Since the second Olympics in ancient Greece, no fallen champion had been spared. The thing about true winners is that they are never prepared for defeat and Usain Bolt wept in front millions as the Kopis Sword was sharpened; its edge as keen as the day is was forged. The winning ceremonies were always hard to stomach; not just for the losers, and only around half the crowd remained to watch.

Up on the podium, it was only a desire to be stronger and faster that kept Asafa Powell’s mandible chewing, and his stomach from spewing as he consumed the two huge gluteus Maximus and gastrocnemius’, the anterior and posterior cruciates and two lots of the four-strong muscle group that were the quadriceps of Usain Bolt. Then a stock was made of the bones which he knocked back from shot glasses, as the Jamaican national anthem played. A tear rolled down Asafa Powell’s cheek as he received his gold medal. In four short years he would have to run for it all, but he would have the legs of all the great sprinters who ever lived, in his.  And he knew that no man runs faster than when he runs for his life.