Before there would be The Race, there was the embrace.
It came in some solitary corner of Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, out of sight from the crowd gathered for the 2009 track and field world championships, removed from the 100-meter straightaway where Carmelita Jeter finished the final heat in third place. It was a rare moment of vulnerability and vincibility for “The Jet,” and she melted from world-class sprinter into an open spigot of tears and snot and regret. Had she not been sobbing in the arms of John Smith, her coach holding her together, she might have dissolved into a puddle of disappointment right there on the arena floor.
