Edwin Moses, by Mark Kram

Between 1977 and 1987, Edwin Moses won 122 consecutive races in the men’s 400-meter hurdles—including his second Olympic gold—in a streak as fantastic and improbable as Joe DiMaggio’s fifty-six-game hitting streak. In his 1987 interview with Moses, Mark Kram, known for writing penetrating and lyrical boxing profiles, probes the champ’s cool, implacable exterior to discover what kind of person can sustain such excellence—and to measure the toll it took. With the Summer Olympics now under way in Rio, Sports Illustrated veteran Tim Layden joins host David Brancaccio to shed further insight on Moses, an enigmatic star who helped usher in the professionalization of what was previously an amateur sport, and who left a record that remains peerless.