The night before the men's 100 metre final at the 2012 London Olympics, 22 year old Yohan Blake could not sleep. The following day's race would be the most important of his life: The young Jamaican was about to compete in his first Olympic final. Billions of people would be watching him try to beat his rivals in a burst of speed and power that would last less than 10 seconds. Blake kept getting up from his single bed and going to the bathroom, thinking over and over again, “Jesus, big race tomorrow.”
PHOTOGRAPHS BY ALINA EMRICH
By the time the sun rose on August 5, he was bleary-eyed and still had a whole day to get through until the race that evening. He watched a cricket match on TV, sitting alone amid the clothes and food cartons strewn across his room in the athletes’ village.