See How She Runs: Marion Jones and the Making Of a Champion
by By Rapoport, Ron
Category: Sports & Recreation , Basketball

She has been called "the next great sports superstar." She's a world-champion sprinter and a national-champion basketball player. She has been considered the next great hope for American track and field since she was fourteen. At sixteen, she made the U.S. Olympic team. Nike has created a shoe for her, Annie Leibovitz has photographed her, and the world is watching to see if she'll be the first person ever to win five gold medals in track at the Olympics.  Marion Jones is faster than any woman alive, but where did she come from and where is she going?  Ron Rapoport's biography of the woman the New York Times called "the most prominent track athlete on the planet" is a remarkable profile of a woman not at the end of her athletic career, but at the beginning. It's the story of a season at the highest level of sport, and the triumphs and tragedies of Jones's quest to win four gold medals at the 1999 World Championships, the gateway to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.  Her story is also that of an American girl born into a society just beginning to make room for women on its playing fields. She played baseball, basketball. She ran. She grew tall and beautiful and strong. She led he college basketball team to a national championship. But it was running that she loved; she could run faster than anyone.  Rapoport follows Jones from meet to meet during the 1999 outdoor track season, a witness to her domination. With unprecedented access to Jones, her colleagues, family, friends and foes, Rapoport artfully presents the stories of a world-class athlete whose quest began as the dream of a little girl.