This one is personal.
This one is about what I came to the Olympics to see.This one is about - I know I am making a broad statement here and if you disagree with me so be it - the greatest comeback in the history of sports.
This one is about Gail Devers.
Gail Devers won the gold medal in the 100-meter dash here Saturday night.
She finished first among the five women who, in a race that was simply incredible, crossed the finish line within six-tenths of a second of each other.
There was not a way in the world Gail Devers could have done this thing but she did.
When I first heard the story of how Gail Devers twice came within a few weeks of dying from a thyroid condition known as Graves' disease, of how she nearly had her feet amputated, of how she lost her hair and her memory and her mind, I could scarcely believe she was going to the Olympics.
When I first heard the story of how her feet swelled up into pestilential monstrosities, of how she had to be carried to the bathroom by her parents because she could not allow her feet to touch the floor, of how her skin broke into itchy, scabby scales in every crevice of her body, I could not believe I was talking to a world-class athlete.
And Saturday, after Gail Devers won the gold medal, there was even more not to believe.
I should be getting used to this by now, I suppose, because Gail Devers' story is like something out of that novel by Amy Tan, "The Kitchen God's Wife," in which one terrible thing after another keeps happening to the same poor woman.
So here is the latest thing to happen to Gail Devers. On the eve of the Olympics, in the moments before her greatest triumph, she was sick all over again.
It does not seem possible that, after all she has gone through, there could have been still more torment in store for her. But there was.
It does not seem possible that even as she was kneeling down to run in the most important race of her life her Graves' disease could be acting up again. But it was.
It does not seem possible that given all this - and given the fact that the 100-meter dash is not her best race because Devers is essentially a hurdler - she could have won the gold medal. But she did.
"Her medication was not working as much as it was in the past," said Devers' coach, Bobby Kersee, after the race of the synthetic thyroid pills Devers takes daily to compensate for having had her cancerous thyroid removed. "The doctors wanted to change her medication, but it was too close to the Olympics to change."
So in the heat and the humidity of Barcelona, Devers' skin began to break out and become maddeningly itchy again. In the pressure and the excitement of competing in the Olympics, Devers began to feel tightness on the right side of her leg, then a numbness, then a tingling.
It got so bad she could not feel her foot against the starting block, Kersee said. Use your arms more he told her.
"This is no all-comers meet in San Diego," Kersee told Devers, who lives in Van Nuys. "This is the Olympics."
So she came out onto the track Saturday and she easily qualified for the finals in her semifinal race. Then, one more time, she came out onto the track again.
"You worked three years for this," Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who was still competing in the first day of the heptathlon competition, told her as she bent down to the starting block. "Now go get it." And she did.
"I had no idea I had won," Devers said. "It wasn't until they announced it that I knew for sure."
Is this a Cinderella story? somebody asked Devers, compared to whom Cinderella is an overpublicized piker.
"I don't know about that," Devers said, "but it feels great. To me, this means my Graves' disease is over. I'm back where I wanted to be."
She may soon be back farther than that. When the full story of how Devers had fought back from her cancerous condition - of how she nearly died twice, once from misdiagnosis and once from too much radiation treatment - hit the papers a month or so ago, Devers received a phone call from a couple of bright young women with good credentials interested in developing her story into a television movie.
Intrigued with the idea, Devers took the meeting then a few days later flew off to Barcelona. Saturday night, if I am any judge, Gail Devers' price went way, way up.