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Matt was having a damnable time catching the broadcasts of events having to do with Cheryl and Darcy. He left his digital recorder going while he was working, but he'd never thought to look for the complete broadcast schedule. Relying on what the announcers and commentators were saying about what was coming up was driving him crazy. He'd bought another six pack of USB drives, and spent hours each evening reviewing what he'd already recorded and watching it on fast forward. There had to be a better way, dammit.
His quality of life made a quantum improvement once he realized he could print out the schedule of events online at a computer at the newspaper office. He made a mental note to buy his own printer for future use, adding a mental asterisk to find a way to pay for it.
The printout, done at Crusty's expense, took eight pages—so many events! He'd never realized. With its help he saw immediately that the ones he was most interested in did not take place in the first few days. Thus, he was able to save some reviewing time, just catching the barest glimpse of badminton, shooting, and handball, worthy as he was sure those were.
He managed to see Cheryl's qualifying heat for the 10,000-meters, which she won handily, finishing with her characteristic exuberance, waving to the crowd and hugging the other runners.
But then, while fast forwarding through the late-night recording, he thought he saw Darcy standing by some starting blocks.
He stopped and backed up the recording.
Sure enough, there she was, standing calmly among six or seven taller women, most of them nervously jumping up and down or shaking their limbs. As he watched, the runners set themselves in the blocks. All at once, they took off down the track.
Darcy, her legs a blur, won by a foot or two. It was a 100-meter race!
Whoa! He thought Cheryl had said Darcy was a distance runner. What the hell?
The schedule told him when the events would be, but it didn't list the athletes participating in a given event. He had no idea what events Darcy was in.
He made it a point to drop by the university and ask Coach Pérez the next morning. "Good question," she nodded, and turned to her computer. After a few minutes of clicking away, she sat back.
"Hmmm. This can't be right."
"What can't be right?"
"I dialed up the official Olympic website and searched for her name. She's shown as a member of the Barbadian team. So I searched for all events with Barbadians in them and then searched those hits just for Darcy. Look at this! It shows she's in six different events! How can that be?"
"Is that unusual?" asked Matt.
"No, not always. Not for some athletes and some events. Swimmers, for example. They often swim in lots of events. Remember Michael Phelps, who won something like, what, six or seven medals? But those were all in the pool.
“Darcy's shown here in six totally different events, or at least three or four different types of events. Look: the 100-meters, which is an all-out sprint, the marathon and the bicycle road race, both endurance events, the high jump and long jump, and then platform diving, for heaven's sake. No one has ever competed in all those different kinds of events, not that I'm aware of. This schedule must be incorrect!"
"I was going to ask you about that next," said Matt.
He handed Coach Pérez the USB drive he'd made.
"Take a look at this. I recorded it two nights ago."
They watched Darcy run her 100-meter sprint again.
"Look at that!" said the coach. "Her form really isn't that good. She doesn't have the musculature of the typical sprinter, not at all. You can see she's hardly down in the starting blocks, though she gets an excellent start, right at the gun, a half step ahead of everyone else. She doesn't have the thighs to really rip out of the blocks, but once she gets moving, she picks up speed quickly. Then she stays right with the leader until the last twenty meters, when she pulls ahead. Amazing!"
"Let it keep going," said Matt. "Listen to the announcers."
There were two sports announcers, one older and seasoned, the other young, bright and eager.. When Coach Pérez pressed play again, the older announcer was saying, "...on the Barbadian team. We don't know a lot about her, I don't think. What's her story, Howard?"
"You're right, Don, we don't. We know she's down for quite a number of events, including, if you can believe it, the marathon, the long jump, and 10-meter platform diving. The Barbadian coach told me she'll take part in all of them, but you have to wonder. She couldn't possibly be competitive in all those events. Maybe it's part of the team strategy, or maybe it has something to do with local politics. We just don't know. But we do know one thing, Don. She can run the 100-meters with the best of them."
Coach Pérez pressed the pause button and looked at Matt.
"Well, I gotta agree with Howard. I can't imagine that one person could be a contender in all those types of events. But unlike Howard, I have seen her run with my own eyes. I've never seen an athlete quite like her."
"I haven't either," said Matt. "Uh, coach? Would you mind printing me a copy of Darcy's event schedule?"
"I'd be happy to," she replied. "I'll print one for me too!"
