London 2012 Summer Olympics

A Concord movie theater turned on a projector before dawn yesterday to show live footage of former resident Guor Marial running in the Olympics.

Millions of Americans have been following the Olympics in London, and NHPR staffers are no exception. But one of our colleagues is watching with a more seasoned eye – Keith Shields is executive producer of The Exchange, but he’s also a 27-time marathoner who's currently training for an Iron Man triathlon in Quebec.

He tells All Things Considered host Brady Carlson about the races he's been following, London's history in shaping the modern marathon, and whether athletes watch Olympic competition any differently than the rest of us.

Track and field has a numbers problem. As in, there are just too many of them. The 60, 26.2, 4-by-8, 2-oh-3, 5, 8, 10k…

Back in the 1950s, there was one number that mattered.

"I think there are only a handful of achievements like breaking 4 minutes for the first time, in any sport, that comes close to what Roger Bannister has done." 

While the world’s top athletes compete at the  London 2012 Olympics, hundreds of photographers are contending to capture the game’s defining moments on camera.  To maximize its odds of snapping a winning pic, Reuters is getting some help, from robots.  The new shutter-bots will be stationed at Table Tennis, Boxing, Taekwondo, Judo, Fencing, Weight Lifting, and at the main Olympic Park for some of the big events.  Word of Mouth Producer Taylor Quimby caught up with Patrick Cain, a freelance reporter for th

Guor Marial is a South Sudanese refugee who spent his high school years in Concord. He has now qualified to run the Olympic marathon.

In the past few weeks he’s had a lot of press: Time Magazine, the Guardian, The Chicago Tribune, the Associated Press, and too many other publications to name have run profiles on him. Marial’s story has spread so far because it’s basically the perfect Olympic story.

Gold medal victories of Michael Phelps, Carl Lewis, Kerry Strug, and Joan Benoit...these moments of triumph, sometimes against all odds are what make the Olympics stand apart from other sports competition. The idea that a human being can achieve feats most of us can only imagine.