The Ultimate Athlete

The Ultimate AthleteAlberto Salazar was near death. That sounded a bit melodramatic, even for athletes, whose lives can often seem like B movies. But the rumor persisted as hundreds lingered in the cavernous Prudential Center after last April's Boston Marathon. There was just this morbid buzz, the kind of grim expectancy that follows the classic moments of athletic horror: the scythed matador; the driver flipped on a turn; the fighter who can't be revived; the hitter who takes a 95-mile-an-hour...