LONDON –– After putting all her body weight into the lean across the finish line, American Kellie Wells decelerated and turned her gaze upward toward the video board.
Reuters
Sally Pearson and Kellie Wells wait in the rain to find out where they finished in the Olympic 100m hurdles final.
And she stared at it for what seemed like an eternity waiting for the results.
“It felt like an hour and it was probably only a minute and a half,” she said.
You’ll have to forgive Wells for her impatience as she is new to this whole Olympic 100m hurdles drama phenomenon.
Experience didn’t make the wait any less stressful for Wells’ teammate Dawn Harper or for Australia’s Sally Pearson, both of whom suffered through a similarly agonizing wait while the medal positions were sorted out in Beijing four years ago.
“When I crossed the line in ’08, I literally didn’t know where I was and didn’t know what was going on,” Harper, who wound up with gold, said. “This time when I leaned, I thought, ‘There may be a chance.’”
From the stadium tribune, it also appeared that Harper may have become just the second repeat Olympic champion in the 100m hurdles, but the photo finish showed Pearson, the 2008 silver medalist, edging Harper by two-hundredths of a second for the gold in an Olympic-record 12.35. Wells took the bronze in a personal-best 12.48 while Lolo Jones finished fourth in 12.58.
“This time (the delay) was for gold not silver so it was pretty intense, but also a dream come true,” Pearson said. “I worked so hard for this and I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from winning.”
The time it took to sort out the places was really only a delay of what has been abundantly clear this entire season, perhaps even two years – that Pearson, Harper and Wells are the best women’s short hurdlers on the planet.
In the case of Pearson, winning here at the Games further solidified her position as the fastest woman in the world. Last summer, she won at the World Championships in Daegu in 12.28, the third-fastest time ever. Tonight, she responded to a 12.46 thrown down by Harper in the semifinals with a 12.39 eight minutes later, and then the second-fastest time of her life in the final.
“After the semi, I felt amazing and was really ready for this,” Pearson said. “I spoke to my coach and she said, ‘No guts, no glory.’ I just went out there with everything I had and did it.”
For a moment, Harper thought that she had gotten the victory but couldn’t be certain as running in lane four left her with no consciousness of where Pearson was out in lane seven. In the end, she was satisfied with joining two-time bronze medalist Melissa Morrison (2000-04) as the only Americans with two career Olympic medals in this event.
“I could not feel her and I was like, ‘Darn it, where am I?’” Harper said of Pearson. “That was the issue. When I leaned at the line then looked over, that was the only time I knew where I was in relation. When I saw my name pop up in second and I saw the time and I was like, ‘You can’t be too mad. You got a medal.’”
As did Wells, which is no small feat considering that she broke her arm in February during a training accident, missed the indoor season, and still recovered strong.
Her biggest thrill was looking up after getting her place and time and locking eyes with her uncle and three aunts in the stands, none of whom had ever seen her race in person before.
“To be able to do well for them is amazing,” Wells said. “This is like an out-of-body experience right now. I feel like I am watching this. It’s such a good feeling. I’ve always watched all the greats and to know, ‘Oh my gosh, now I am one of them’ is unreal.”
© 2012 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Any use, reproduction, modification, distribution, display or performance of this material without NBCUniversal’s prior written consent is prohibited.
