Jones was right: She could have won, and she was about to—not just holding a lead but adding to it when she came to the ninth of 10 hurdles Tuesday night.
Alas, the American’s foot slammed into that barrier instead of clearing it, and the next thing Jones knew, she was struggling to keep her balance rather than smoothly sailing across the finish line.
Jones dropped from first to seventh behind unlikely champion Dawn Harper of the United States, then dropped to her knees in despair, folding her body to the track and resting her head on her hands. There she stayed, all alone, for a few minutes.
Richards was also about to win—taking a lead into the final 80 meters. That’s when she began slowing and was passed, not once, but twice.
Richards blamed her fade on a tightening right hamstring, and although she still wound up with a bronze behind Britain’s Christine Ohuruogu and Jamaica’s Shericka Williams, she hardly looked thrilled up on that podium, sighing after receiving her flowers. Minutes later, she was sobbing into a cell phone, sitting on the floor in a hallway beneath the stands.
Earlier this month, at U.S. training camp in Dalian, China, Richards and her personal coach, Clyde Hart, were talking about how the splotches on her legs—a final remnant of a rare disease that has hobbled her—were finally fading.
Richards figured there’d be no better sign she was all the way back than an Olympic title.
Tough breaks came twice Tuesday, for Richards and for Jones, in an Olympic track and field meet in which little has gone according to plan for the United States.
Instead, victories on this night seemed to be reserved for athletes who barely made it to the Summer Games.
Harper, for example, grabbed the last spot at the U.S. Olympic trials by 0.007 second. On the biggest stage of all for her sport, she was good enough for gold, windmilling both arms as she finished in 12.54 seconds.
That wasn’t anywhere near as fast as Jones’ best time this year, and Harper arrived here not nearly as touted as Jones, who drew attention before the Beijing Games for her talent and her life story—living in a church basement at one point as a kid, working at a hardware store and as a waitress to pay bills as an adult.
She was suspended for a year by UK Athletics for missing three out-of-competition drug tests between October 2005 and July 2006—the first British track athlete punished for missing three tests. She said she missed the testers when her training schedules were changed at late notice.
Someone else who barely made it to Beijing yet went to sleep Tuesday night a gold medalist is men’s high jumper Andrey Silnov of Russia. He failed to qualify for his country’s team at its Olympic trials—but then turned in a season-best performance of 7 feet, 93/4 inches (2.38 meters) last month.
So the Russian federation ordered a “jump-off” between him and another athlete, and afterward, Silnov was put on the team.
Other golds Tuesday went to Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain in the 1,500 meters, and Gerd Kanter of Estonia in the discus throw.
The most anticipated of Wednesday night’s finals is the men’s 200 meters, where Jamaica’s Usain Bolt will try to add that gold to his world-record-breaking title in the 100. Success would make him the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win both sprints at an Olympic Games.
Jones and Richards were both left to look back.
Both women stayed on the track for several minutes, watching replay after replay of their races on the arena’s scoreboards.
Jones put her hands on her head and exhaled, then looked across the way at the spot where she had knocked over that hurdle. Then she slapped her sunglasses against her palm while watching Harper take the flag-waving victory lap that was supposed to be hers.
It’s likely she’ll be thought of along with Gail Devers, the American who was leading her race at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, then hit the final hurdle and finished fifth.
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