The World’s Greatest Athlete?

The Wall Street Journal set out to answer this parlor-game question: If Earth had to send one man to the Intergalactic Olympics, who should go?

They asked a panel of sports experts to sift through a mountain of data and pick the fastest, strongest, most agile man on Earth…

AND THE WINNER IS: ROMAN SEBRLE. The Czech decathlete could jump over Shaquille O’Neal. He could throw a 16-pound ball the length of a 53-foot yacht. From a running start, he could leap over a two-lane highway. Mr. Sebrle has ideal size, according to physiologists, and expertise over a range of athletic pursuits, employing the speed of an NFL back and the vertical jump of an National Basketball Association forward. Some judges questioned whether Mr. Sebrle could withstand a tackle by an NFL lineman, but none questioned his talent in the 10 track and field events that make up the decathlon. He has won Olympic gold and silver medals for the Czech Republic and is the current world champion.

For how they did it, read here.

Fast Living

It is half an hour before dawn in the Ethiopian highlands, and most of the town of Bekoji still slumbers in the shadows of a 14,000-ft.-high (4,300 m high) volcano. On the streets, though, a silent army is on the move. More than a hundred boys and girls — many in bare feet, some no taller than the goats feeding by the roadside — gravitate toward a vast, grassy plateau on Bekoji’s outskirts. There, a man with a stopwatch, local running coach Santayehu Eshetu, is waiting. So intense is the hunger here for running — and its rewards — that Eshetu’s workouts, initially meant for 25 athletes, now draw 150 or more. Focused and serious, the runners listen to his words of guidance before taking off across the plateau, their feet slapping the earth in thunderous unison. “I have no doubt,” says Eshetu, “that one of these kids will be world champion.”

Anywhere else, that comment might be an idle boast. In Bekoji, it is a virtual guarantee. By an improbable quirk of history, this small community of farmers and herders along the Great Rift Valley (pop. 33,000) has become the world’s leading producer of distance runners.

More in Time.