An American woman has only won the 400m once at the Olympics, at Los Angeles during the Soviet-led boycott. Sanya Richards is a favourite to claim that gold once again for the United States. Her final is on the 19th, perhaps a moment she has been visualising for years, and she says she is anxious to get started.

Kingston-born Richards’s is a story of overcoming personal odds. Last year she found herself out of contention in competition after symptoms of Behcet’s Disease, an inflammatory syndrome, were first misdiagnosed and then for a while mistreated. During the worst of it, she says, her mouth ulcers and skin lesions were so acute that she’d write notes because talking was so painful. She would wake up in the middle of the night imagining someone was patting a hot iron on her body.

A year later she is ranked world number one in the women’s 400m, the race that combines the raw power of the 100m and 200m sprints and the clever thinking needed to master the middle distances.

These are the kind of stories that humanise the statistics at this Olympics: American Eric Shanteau’s decision to postpone a cancer surgery for the chance to swim the 200m breaststroke (he was eliminated in the semi-final on Wednesday). South African Natalie du Toit’s participation in 10 km open water race, making her the first amputee to swim at the Olympics.

But it is a reflection of the disrepute that has come to track and field that when Richards meets reporters on a wet and grey Thursday afternoon, she is asked about the state of athletics, about what can be done to redeem confidence in sprinters.

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