piece of non-fiction

WALTER DIX- Following the Olympic dream

While becoming only the second man to win the 200 m NCAA outdoor title three times, Walter Dix went into a third place tie with six individual outdoor national championships and gathered up an outstanding eighteen All-American honors. He ran the seventh fastest recorded 200m on May, 26 2007 when he ran a 19.69 at the NCAA East Regional. Dix is the first one since 1969 to win the 100m, 200m and 4x100m at the NCAA Outdoor Championships. During his freshman year at Florida State in 2005, Dix had an amazing season that ended with him winning the NCAA Outdoor men’s 100m title, finishing fourth at the USA Outdoor Championships, and ending the campaign ranked #4 in the nation in that event by Track & Field News. At the 2005 NCAA East Region Championships, Dix broke the American junior record and the FSU all-time100m track record with a 10.06 clip to lead all qualifiers. His performance was the third-fastest junior time in the world, with the top mark being just being broken by Jeff Demps with a 10.01. Dix added the honor of Mondo Regional Athlete of the Year and ACC Outdoor Rookie of the Year to his list of awards. He is the first to sweep 100m & 200m ACC titles since Brendon Mahoney did it for Georgia Tech in 2000. He was the top high school sprinter in the nation for the 2004 season, running Olympic standard times in the 100m and 200m shattering the state mark with a 10.28 in the 100 meters at the Florida Class 4A state meet. He also broke the Florida high school record in the 200 meters. He was one of six SchoolSports Magazine's top high school athletes in the nation and was named a two-time Ft. Lauderdale Sun Sentinel Track Athlete of the Year.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
Eight-time NCAA champ100 outdoors: 2005, '07200 outdoors: 2006, '07, '08200 indoor: 2006, '074x100 relay: 200717-time All-AmericanNine-time ACC champion2007 Division I Track Athlete of the Year
Other highlightsNCAA 200 outdoor record (19.69) in 2007U.S. junior record in 100 (10.06) in 2005Florida high school state record-holder in 100 (10.28) and 200 (20.54)
People were questioning why Dix hadn’t turned professional after an amazing junior year, or after a hamstring injury sustained during the spring. However when Dix decided to turn pro and go out for the Olympic team, he did not disappoint. He became the only American to qualify for Beijing in the 100m and 200m. Dix won the 200m race with a Hayword Field record time of 19.86 seconds, beating 2004 Olympic Champion Shawn Crawford by five hundredths of a second. Dix also finished second to Tyson Gay in the 100m, earning a spot on Team USA's 4x100m relay. On August 16 using his world-class closing speed, Dix passed the majority of the field in the final 40 meters of the finals of the 100m at the Summer Olympics to bring home the bronze medal with a personal-best time of 9.91. In the 200m he also won a bronze medal with a time of 19.98. Unfortunately the 4x100m relay team did not make the finals due to a bad exchange and the fall of the baton.
Dix only being 22 still has a lot of races ahead of him and another Olympics to look forward to so that he can add more medals to his collection. "We're just so unbelievable happy for Walt," FSU head coach Bob Braman said. "He's the last of a breed of collegiate athletes that have done it the right way and this is his reward. He didn't get off to the greatest of starts, but as the whole world now knows, very few people can close a race like Walt." Now we can only imagine, what if he had had a better start? What if?