The Beauty of Shaunae Miller’s Ugly Dive in Rio

If the final moments of Monday night’s women’s four hundred metres in Rio had been in a sports movie, they would have been shot in momentous slow motion. In one lane was Shaunae Miller, of the Bahamas, two steps from the finish, clinging to a lead. A few lanes over and a step behind was the favorite, Allyson Felix, of the United States, charging hard. At the crucial moment, Miller lunged awkwardly, and fell headfirst toward the line, while Felix leaned classically forward, her head slightly up, an image of athletic grace. Who had won? The question stretched for several cinematic seconds, before Miller’s name flashed on the board, the winner by seven hundredths of a second. “We have barely ever seen a more dramatic end to a race than that,” NBC’s analyst declared, and in movie land, at this point, the musical score would have swelled to match the roar of the crowd as the camera captured Miller’s exhausted face in closeup, the victorious underdog.