Three months out from the London 2012 Olympic Games, all available data pointed to one thing: the U.S. women’s track cycling pursuit team had no chance, at least not if it stuck by the book. Dotsie Bausch, Sarah Hammer, Jennie Reed, and Lauren Tamayo didn’t have the money or the manpower available to do things the traditional way.
So they tore up the training manual and turned instead to another set of data: their own. Perhaps, if they knew absolutely everything they could know about their own bodies—numbers gleaned from fitness trackers, medical devices and DNA testing—they could find enough of an edge to bring home a medal. Personal Gold, a documentary premiering at the Seattle International Film Festival on May 16, tells the story of that experiment, and the hypothesis-affirming silver medals they won. It also offers a hint of where science might be taking sports, and what may be in store for Rio 2016 and beyond.
Before London, the U.S. women hadn’t won a track medal in 20 years. In 2000, USA Cycling moved to dissolve its amateur programs and reassign resources in search of professional success. Lance Armstrong, George Hincapie, and Floyd Landis were American cycling, not a handful of amateurs competing in velodromes. Three years before London, the International Olympic Committee also cut the individual pursuit from the track competition. Hammer, then a two-time world champion in that event, was stranded.