By Odeisel

We don’t trust much in this age of Photoshopped nudes, steroid-powered athletes, and tabloid hysteria.  Often when we do see things that border on the unbelievable, we’ve been numbed by the constant hype surrounding the events of our lifetime.  Everything records is a classic.  Every athlete is the greatest. Hyperbole and hubris are now very commonplace. Occasionally, we see something that none of us can believe, and in those moments the childlike amazement we’ve locked away with dog-eared baseball cards, cracked CD cases, and rolled up comic books is dusted off and polished to deal with our astonishment.  Yesterday we bore witness to two such events believe it or not.

In the last major of the year, with the momentum of five recent victories and a daunting final round lead, one which history said was virtually insurmountable, Tiger Woods was finally stared down and beaten in the final round by a mere mortal. Despite being in control of the PGA Championship for most of the tournament, Woods was defeated by relatively unheralded Y.E. Yang. It was perhaps the most compelling final round of the year concerning Woods.

As much as golf is a test of wills and as man vs. nature as sports gets, it’s also at times a personal challenge when pairings get tight and it’s shot for shot until the final hole.  On this Sunday, Superman was not only caught, but defeated.  Despite, Tiger’s defeat, such a thing is a big boost for the game of golf.  It adds a new level of final round drama to events where Tiger victories have been foregone conclusions as of late. It may also make him focus on his putting and take his wrath out on the field.  In any event, for fans of the game, we got an exciting Sunday, a new player in Yang to watch, and perhaps a crack in the armor of Woods. It will be interesting to see how he responds.

Elsewhere we saw something that was previously physically impossible. In what was the fastest 100m race in track history, two of the three fastest hundred meters ever run took place on the same track as Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, and Asafa Powell ran for the gold, silver, and bronze medals yesterday at the12th IAAF World Championships.

In the stadium where Jesse Owens ran the very first human f**k you to Hitler’s idea of Aryan superiority, Bolt ran the first f**k you to physics. His closest competitor, Gay ran the fastest time in American history and the third fastest 100 meters of all time, faster that Powell’s former world record of 9.72, and was literally obliterated by Bolt’s 9.58 seconds.  Think about that for a moment.  The third fastest 100m of all time was blown off the track during the same race. Bolt has always been a track prodigy, owning the fastest 100m time at the ages of 15, 16, and 17; cursory evidence that there is no artificial flavoring powering his rise to greatness.  With doping casting a huge shadow over the sport, both Gay and Bolt stand as testaments to the incredible, yet rare limits that the human body can naturally achieve. 

In the blink of an eye, and a race finished not gliding but striding to the finish, Usain Bolt silenced detractors who decried his gamesmanship as “hot-dogging,” showing the world what he could do if focused.  It appears that Bolt’s only true rival in the sport of track and field is the stop watch, and even that is being pushed further back than anyone ever has.

Sunday, if only for fleeting moments, we were able to turn back our clocks and watch with childlike excitement and wonder at how competition and human exertion can encapsulate our life experience.  That even the insurmountable can be overcome and that even in the face of doubt, we can give our all and achieve things that were never before witnessed. And we didn’t need hype, commercials, or tricks to see it.

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