Having previously tied the world record, Eddie Hart was a strong favorite to win the 100-meter dash at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. Then the inexplicable happened: he was disqualified after arriving seconds late for a quarterfinal heat. Ten years of training to become the -World's Fastest Human, - the title attached to an Olympic 100-meter champion, was lost in a heartbeat. But who was to blame?

Hart's disappointment, though excruciating, was just one of many subplots to the most tragic of Olympic Games, at which eight Arab terrorists assassinated eleven Israeli athletes and...