Director Todd Gould on the Making of Major Taylor: Champion of the Race

By Alex Chambers

Published February 23, 2024 at 5:06 PM EST

Major Taylor on French track looking to infield

Major Taylor: Champion of the Race, a new documentary about the early 20th-century international superstar athlete you've probably never heard of, premiers on WTIU and PBS Video on Monday, February 26, at 8pm.

Inner States host Alex Chambers spoke with director Todd Gould about who Major Taylor was, why he matters, and about how the real results of a documentary, for Todd, are the people he can connect with each other along the way.

Music in this feature is sourced from music used in the documentary itself, composed by Tyron Cooper.

Alex Chambers

Alex Chambers runs WFIU’s arts desk, and produces and hosts WFIU’s Inner States, a weekly podcast and radio show about arts, culture, and ideas from southern Indiana and beyond. He’s the co-creator of How to Survive the Future, a podcast about the present, produced in partnership with Indiana Humanities. He has a PhD in American Studies, with a dissertation called Climate Violence and the Poetics of Refuge, and a book of poems called Bindings: A Preparation, about domestic life and empire. In his spare time, he teaches audio storytelling at the IU Media School. When he’s not in the woods gathering sound, you might see him out for a run on the streets of Bloomington.

See stories by Alex Chambers