One of the greatest untold Olympics stories

TAIPEI ­– Two sporting legends from opposite sides of the globe. The fiercest rivals in the world’s most demanding athletic event, the Decathlon – their duel at the Rome Games in 1960 still one of the iconic moments in Olympic history. And also – unknown to many – the closest of friends, training together under the same coach, helping and pushing each other, jokingly calling themselves “the two-man United Nations.”

What a great story. What a potentially terrific documentary film.

Yet it took me and my co-creator, the author and former Asian Wall Street Journal reporter John Krich, more than 15 years to get it made. Now, finally, “Decathlon: The CK Yang and Rafer Johnson Story” is done and streaming online.

What kept us going?

I think, above all, it was the power of this tale of friendship and struggle along with the uniquely compelling personalities of the two main protagonists.

Yang Chuan-kwang was Amis, one of Taiwan’s indigenous people. He grew up poor in the mountains of eastern Taiwan. But he had remarkable athletic skills – so much so that when he tried out for Taiwan’s team for the 1954 Asian Games in Manila, he beat all his teammates in almost every event, prompting his coaches to insist he commit to the Decathlon. Even without knowing all the rules, he won gold in Manila and was dubbed “the iron man of Asia.”

Rafer Johnson grew up poor, as well, the son of a sharecropper in Texas. As a teenager, with his athletic prowess, he could have played professional football or basketball, but he gave up such potentially lucrative paths for the Decathlon. While at UCLA, he set the world record in 1958, and also became one of the first African Americans elected as student body president. Indeed, his sporting success made