National Geographic

world record himself. Unwittingly, though, hehelped Powell do it. “I love Carl now, but backthen I hated him,” Powell said. “So when wecompeted, he brought my energy level way up.”Right before Powell uncorked the record jump,Lewis leaped farther than anyone ever had, beat-ing Beamon by a quarter inch. But the wind wasblowing too hard at his back, so it didn’t count.Powell can’t get the image out of his headnearly three decades later. “He ran past me,pumping his fist. That got me mad. It made itreal personal. I had always been the skinnyguy, the one picked on. It was happening again,right there. But I could do something about itthis time. My body just took over and did what Ineeded to do.” Powell’s amazing jump is still theAcclaimed distancerunner Nancy Kiprop,39, dances with stu-dents at the schoolshe founded near Iten,a tiny corner of west-ern Kenya where manyof the world’s fastestdistance runners train.The local governmentallowed her to estab-lish the school, whichshe named in honor ofher father. Kiprop sub-sidizes the children’sschool fees with incomefrom her shoe sponsor-ships and race earnings.NICHOLE SOBECKI``````PREVIOUS PHOTORunners from Iten prac-tice together. Distancerunning is a proud tra-dition in Kenya, wheremany of the best run-ners take advantageof the region’s highaltitude and challeng-ing terrain. Kenyan menhave nine of the 10 fast-est times in the mar-athon; four of the 10fastest women’s timeswere run by Kenyans.NICHOLE SOBECKI``````Christine Brennan is a national sports columnistfor USA Today, a commentator for CNN, ABCNews, PBS NewsHour, and NPR, and a best-sellingauthor. She has covered 18 consecutive Olympics,starting with the 1984 Los Angeles Games.``````world record. “Carl raised the bar so high,” Powellsaid. “I knew I had to break a world record justto beat him.”That’s the school-yard view of human perfor-mance—and a testament to the mind’s ability.“I don’t think we have really tapped into thepower of the brain,” says Gemmell, Ledecky’sOlympic coach. “That’s the next frontier overthe next 30 years: how we train the brain like thebody. That’s where the breakthroughs are goingto come next.” j``````FASTER, HIGHER, SMARTER, STRONGER 71