Going into the 10,000 meters at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, nobody was talking about Billy Mills. The favorite was Australia’s Ron Clarke, the world record holder. With one lap to go, Clarke was leading with Mills right beside him. Then Clarke moved out around a lapped runner and pushed Mills into an outer lane while Gammoudi of Tunisia shot past on the inside. Mills looked done. Instead he found another gear, sprinted past both of them, and won by three meters. Afterward somebody asked Clarke if he’d been worried about Mills. Clarke said, “Concerned about him? I never heard of him.” Mills’s win is often called the greatest upset in Olympic track history. God loves to use the people nobody saw coming.
