The Real News

As everything gradually came out into the open, modern competitive sports were the first to buckle—and the fallout ran deeper than any jumble of online posts or videos.

For many people, the details emerging from it all only poured fuel on the fire.

"What the hell?"

Wu Shaoyou had barely read a few lines of the major story pinned to the top of his browser before his face froze. He nearly spat out his drink.

He looked back. Li Anshan was still lying motionless in bed, looking sickly as he had for the past few days, probably catching up on sleep. So Wu Shaoyou called to his other roommate, asking Wang Lei to come over and take a look.

What he had just seen made his scalp prickle.

The day before, a famous international track-and-field event had produced a new world record.

The contender was a young athlete of Indian descent named Berhand, reportedly from Mauritius, a country covering barely two thousand square kilometers. It was his first year competing, and he had been a nobody until then. He seemed to have been hiding his ability: through every round of qualifying, his performance had been unremarkable.

Then, in the men's hundred-meter final, he burst into motion at an unimaginable speed and won in 8.46 seconds, shattering the previous world record of just under ten seconds.

He crossed the finish line like a howling gale, more than a dozen body lengths ahead of the runner-up. As he threw up his arms and shouted in triumph, the announcer's astonished commentary came out in stammers, and the entire venue erupted.

The sight left most spectators stunned.

When that glaring time appeared on the display, many people's first reaction—even among the judges—seemed to be: Was the timer broken?

Clearly, many people around the world