The silver medal was little consolation to Sime. “You move on,” he said. “You get over it.” Besides, he was expected to win a gold medal a week later anchoring the United States team in the 4x100-meter relay.

In that final he received the baton in second place, surged to the front and finished first in 39.4 seconds, an apparent world record. But again he was thwarted. Because his team’s first baton pass was made outside the 20-meter passing zone, the Americans were disqualified.

David William Sime was born on July 25, 1936, in Paterson, N.J., and grew up in adjacent Fair Lawn. He went to Duke on a baseball scholarship, played one year as a center fielder and batted .432. His speed was readily apparent. “Here at last is the player who can steal first base,” The Times exclaimed.

He played one year of football at Duke as a lonesome end, lining up 15 yards from the nearest teammate. His first game was against Notre Dame, and on the first play of Duke’s first possession, he caught a touchdown pass. On the first play of Duke’s next possession, he caught another touchdown pass. The Detroit Lions drafted him, but that season was his last in football.

Sime started his track career as a sophomore at Duke when the track coach saw his speed in baseball. At a time when the world record for 100 yards was 9.3 seconds, he ran 9.8 in his first practice and 9.6 in his first meet. A career was born.

There was another side of Sime. David Maraniss, in his book “Rome 1960: The Olympic Games That Changed the World” (2008), wrote that just before the 1960 Games, the C.I.A. recruited Sime to entice the Soviet long jumper Igor Ter-Ovanesyan, a friend, to defect to the United States. Sime introduced him to a C.I.A. agent, but Ter-Ovanesyan, afraid of a trick, stayed put.

The 1960 Olympics ended Sime’s serious track career. In later years, he jogged two or three miles a day and took up golf, tennis, in-line skating and hiking. Three times he fought off cancer. In 1981, he was elected to the National Track and Field Hall of Fame.