‘Certain athletic activities hold no interest for our present inquiry. Jumping and throwing, for example, now require sophisticated techniques that have raised the standard of performance, but destroyed the purity of the events as simple physiological measures. It takes at least three years of intensive coaching and training to bring a high jumper to the limit of his potential, and anyone who has observed a — what is the expression? — Fosbury Flop cannot conceivably classify it as a useful physiological test.
‘Fortunately, there are still events in which the activity is relatively unencumbered by coaching techniques, of which running over short distances is the obvious example. Yes, you may rightly point out that the start of a sprint race is a technical trick with some influence on the total performance, and I concede that. I am also aware that coaching manuals are filled with complicated information on details of stride length, knee lift, posture and so on, but I put it to you that running at the fastest speed of which one is capable is really a basic and natural exercise. In the last fifty years, the world record for 100 metres for men has been improved by less than half a second, and that may be due as much to advances in shoe design and track surfaces as to coaching techniques.’
Here the film returned to an outdoor setting. Dr. Serafin was standing beside a stretch of running track, drawing the hair back from his forehead against a slight breeze.
‘So it is instructive,’ he resumed, ‘to see what our eugenically precocious young woman can achieve as a runner. I should tell you here that at no time in her life has she taken part in competitive athletics. You will not find her name in any of those voluminous statistical manuals. First, let us see her running freely, without regard to any athletic event, simply enjoying the experience of moving at speed.’
Goldengirl was wearing a tracksuit in this shot, a white singlet and the predictable gold silk shorts, but she was barefoot. She was running easily and evenly along the track, her hair springing on her shoulders. Her movement gave the exciting impression of power in reserve, long legs stretching over the track, arms swinging effortlessly in the same rhythm. Whatever Serafin was trying to prove, this girl in motion was superb, an expression of physical well-being that lifted the spirit like the opening bars of a great concerto.
Then Dryden felt his right foot press against the carpet in a reflex movement, as if stepping on the accelerator of his SSK. The girl was powering herself to a faster rate, smooth and controlled as automatic transmission, her hair rippling behind her in a shock of gold, arms pumping in piston-rod precision, legs consuming the track. The background was a blur as the camera panned with her burst of speed for perhaps five seconds, when she slipped into a slower gear and trotted up to Dr. Serafin’s side.
The interesting thing was that in spite of the assurance that this was a run for pure enjoyment, the girl’s face gave no hint of elation, even of satisfaction. She looked, as she had through the film, detached and devoid of emotion of any sort.
The doctor was speaking again: ‘Now that she has warmed up, let us invite her to run 100 metres. Put on your spikes for this, my dear. I shall start her from this end of the track and she will be electronically timed as she passes the line at the end of the straight.’ He paused for Goldengirl to lace up her spikes. ‘Are you ready now? Then go to the center lane and wait for my instructions.’ He picked up a starting pistol from which a lead trailed. ‘On your mark.’
She approached the starting line and got into the crouch position. Without starting blocks she was handicapped already.
‘Set.’
She raised her hips and leaned forward over her fingers, her arms not straight as was usual, but bent slightly at the elbows, bearing the weight of her trunk, ready to use their strength to produce a more powerful impetus.
The gun cracked, and she was in motion, her body angled unusually low to the track for the first thirty metres or more. The transition from photographic stillness to rapid sprinting was dramatic, but less thrilling to Dryden than the surge of acceleration in her first free run. Yet the crispness of her running, even without opposition to measure her by, was demonstrated beyond question. Here was a marvelous athletic talent.
She crossed the line, eased down, stopped, put her hands on her knees and drew breath, repaying the oxygen debt she had incurred.
Dr. Serafin appeared in shot again. ‘The electronic timing gives us 11.17 seconds. If achieved in competition, that would rank her in the top half-dozen women sprinters of the world this year. It is right to mention that this film was made at an altitude of 6,000 feet and that the thinner air is advantageous to sprinters. Against that, one might set the absence of starting blocks and, of course, competition. If I state that in Mexico City in 1968, at an altitude of 7500 feet, Miss Wyomia Tyus, of the United States, set the Olympic Record at exactly eleven seconds, it puts this time in perspective.
‘Allow me to conclude with a simple mathematical observation. If you study the heights of the world’s leading twenty-five women sprinters, you will find that the average is 172.3 centimetres, almost 16 centimetres less than the young woman you have just seen. Now, it is a fact that the maximum force a muscle can produce is proportional to its cross-sectional area. If, as I contend, her muscularity is in direct proportion to her height, and the ratio between the average height and hers is called r, then the ratio between any two corresponding areas of muscle will be r2, as will the maximum forces those muscles can produce. The ratio between our young woman’s height and the average is one point zero nine to one; the ratio of muscular strength is correspondingly one point nineteen to one. In other words, she is nine per cent taller than the average of the world’s best, and her muscular strength is greater by as much as nineteen per cent.’ Serafin spread out his hands. ‘You may begin to understand why we have called her Goldengirl.’
The film concluded with a repeat of the sequence of the girl’s first, untimed run, but in slow motion, so that the minutiae of each stride, the ripple of thigh muscles, the hair’s fluidic rise and fall, took on their own fascination.
As he watched, Dryden reflected wryly on his assumption after the first few frames that he was watching a skinflick. The notion that these people were going to invite him to promote porn had leaped so readily to mind that it had taken more than a minute of the un-seductive Dr. Serafin to shift it. Now, as the film purred through its remaining footage, it was confirmed as a product launch. Dick Armitage’s story had held up: there was actually an unknown girl who appeared to run like a dream. How she measured up to Olympic standards it was impossible to tell. There was only Serafin’s word that she had covered 100 metres in whatever he had said. It could still be an elaborate con. Camera-work can make diamonds out of drops of water.
For the present, it didn’t matter whether Serafin was on the level. Armitage believed he was. Valenti believed it, too. They had backed Goldengirl and they wanted to squeeze the maximum from their investment. This was not the moment to raise doubts about her. He would have to discuss his possible involvement on the basis that Goldengirl was just as brilliant as the film suggested. He could still provide a plausible argument for refusing the commission.