‘That’s good,’ Dryden remarked, airing his TV expertise. ‘With the staggered start, she’ll have them all in her sights.’
‘Not good,’ Brannon corrected him. ‘A dame with legs as long as Goldengirl’s hates the pole position. The bend is tighter on the inside.’
Jackson, who had drawn lane 4, again took her time coming to the start, but Goldine, too, had delayed, unfastening her headscarf to let her hair fall loose. She shook her head, not in the way she had after the defeat, but sharply, so that the hair whipped over her shoulders and had to be put back. From the way she went to the start, lifting her knees suddenly in a parody of the sprint movement, she was perfectly keyed up, free from the constraints of the heats.
Jackson pointedly shook hands with the winners of the two other heats before going to her lane. Second-placers didn’t rate such recognition.
Words were pouring from the public address, but none of the group were listening, or had eyes for any of the runners but one.
‘Set.’
The shot echoed across the arena as Goldine powered off the blocks in a start so crisp that the first few strides were agonizing to watch in case a second shot signaled she had beaten the gun. Into the turn, she was yards up on everyone.
‘Look at the blonde!’ screamed the announcer. ‘See Serafin go!’
Eight seconds into the race she had nullified the stagger by overtaking everyone except Jackson, and she was poised to demoralize her. Arms pumping, spikes clawing the Tartan surface, she came into the home stretch emphatically clear, her hair streaming on the wind. She crossed the line more than ten yards clear, snapping the tape with her hands, like a distance runner.
‘I don’t believe it!’ croaked the announcer. ‘Nobody in America can do that to Debbie Jackson.’
‘The time,’ Serafin asked. ‘What was the time?’
As if he had heard, the announcer called, ‘Twenty-two point eighty-five. Fans, this is straight out of Ripley! It’s inside the Olympic qualifying time! You have just witnessed the fastest two hundred on American soil this year!’
Hearing this, Goldine threw up her arms. People were running to congratulate her as if they had known her all their lives — officials, other athletes, several spectators who had climbed the barrier. After a moment, she waved them away and jogged across the field to retrieve her tracksuit.
‘That felt like a straight scotch,’ said Cobb.
Sandwiched between the two sprint finals was a walking race, dubbed by Valenti the 1,500-metre yawn. Before the last girls waddled across the line, the finalists for the 100-metre dash were making them look doubly ridiculous by trying starts at the end of the straight.
Having dipped deep into his store of superlatives through the afternoon, the announcer was hard-pressed to do justice to what was still to come. ‘Hope there’s no one here with a heart condition, ’cause this is one that’s guaranteed to give you palpitations. Debbie Jackson, the only girl in California to run eleven flat this year, meets the sensational winner of the two hundred, Goldine — I almost called her Golden — Serafin. Incredibly, Goldine only gets this chance because the line-up has been boosted from six to eight, and let’s offer a small prayer of thanks right now to that AAU official who decreed it in his wisdom. This is shaping up as the race of the afternoon. What do you think: can Debbie hold off Goldine’s challenge over 100 metres, her favorite event? Hey, we’ve got the sunshine back to top it off. How do you like that? Let’s not forget either that we’ll be watching six other delectable dashers out to prove that what Goldine did in the furlong, they can do in the short sprint. I’ll call them over now in lane order...’
‘What’s the Olympic standard?’ Cobb asked.
‘Eleven point twenty-five,’ answered Serafin. ‘It won’t be easy. The wind’s dead against them. Look at that flag.’
As a spectacle, the line-up was improved by the addition of two extra runners. Again, Goldine had drawn a central lane, but the girls on either side were no midgets. Jackson, at far left, shook nobody’s hand this time.
In the hunched ritual of the start, somebody was unsteady. The starter got them upright again.
They stepped forward to the blocks for the second time, got set, leaning across the line, tensed for the gun. As it fired, Goldine drove away as explosively as she had in the other final. The gun cracked again. A false start. The marshal spoke to Goldine.
‘There was nothing wrong with that,’ Serafin protested. ‘She has faster reactions than the others. Is she to be penalised for that?’
‘She’ll be disqualified if it happens again,’ Brannon bluntly informed him.
