Sporting Life: What sport sticks in the memory? Raw, testing and immortal

One runner has a chest cold and is so intense he is described by a friend as looking "like a man going to the electric chair" when he runs. The other's foot has been cut open and stitched after he steps on a photographer's broken flashbulb. Offered a local anaesthetic for the pain before the race, he refuses.

This is 1954 and it's the summer of speed.