A sprinter is a runner whose event is the short, all-out races — in athletics that means 100m, 200m and 400m, as opposed to a middle-distance or marathon runner. The word carries a picture of a body type and a way of training, not just a distance: sprinters are usually heavily muscled, they run at full effort from the first step, and they are often useless over long distances, which is exactly the point. It stretches beyond athletics too. In cycling, a sprinter is the rider who is slow up mountains but wins the flat finishes. In everyday talk you can say someone 'is a sprinter, not a marathon runner' about how they work: brilliant in short bursts, poor at long steady projects. In Britain, 'Sprinter' is also the name of a type of local train and a Mercedes van, so a British person may hear it that way first in some contexts.