BEN JOHNSON AND FLO JO KOREA 1988

September 24, 1988, a day on which I saw a man run faster than a man had ever run before. It was a cool and brilliant day in Korea, with great shards of sunlight slanting low as the afternoon slipped toward evening. The participants in the men’s 100-meter final bent into the blocks. It was a shivery, dead-level moment, as if time were running on a very thin and quavery wire. There was Carl Lewis, the defending Olympic champion, all springy and elegant, his eyes narrowed and clear, and there was Ben Jo