BEIJING: The Olympics is about moving stories of hardships overcome, of faith and perseverance, of people with whom we come to identify during the Games until, in the end, we feel we share in the moment when they live their fondest fantasies.
Yeah, right.
Sometimes it works that way. Enough so that, all in all, we figure sport is about as level a playing field as we have.
But there’s another side, too. Part of what makes sport so powerful is that, quite often, it’s so awful you can barely stand to watch it. It’s beyond unfair.
In what has been a generally lousy Olympics for America’s track and field athletes, Sanya Richards and Lolo Jones now stand along in misery. Both were favorites.
Both had their races as good as won. Both would have been quintessential Olympic stories of people who overcame almost unbelievable bad breaks to win gold medals.
Then, as she turned for home, the powerful Richards, who lost much of last season to Behcet’s syndrome, suddenly felt her right hamstring grab. No warning. A perfect race suddenly ruined as she faded to third.
“I felt really good; I felt really strong. I knew that gold was mine,” said Richards who has almost completely overcome her rare and painful disease that causes chronic inflammation of blood vessels throughout the body. “I was starting to get elated on the turn because I know how my races usually go” with a strong finish.
“Then my right hamstring kind of grabbed,” said Richards who had the lowest qualifying time and was as strong a gold-medal favorite as the United States had left in track. “My right leg’s even now, it’s sore. ... I really got a bad break. My hamstring let me down. I feel like I worked so hard in vain.” As for Jones, her life story of poverty, homelessness and endurance would make Dickens blush. Her whole existence has been nothing but clearing hurdles. She, her four siblings and her single mother were once reduced to living in a church basement.
She went to eight schools before high school. Then she lived with four families in high school as well as four more families in the summers. Yet she graduated from LSU with a degree in economics. Finally, after four more years moving up in the track world, living on a shoestring, she finally emerged this season, as the best 100-meter hurdler in the world — just in time for the Games. Perfect timing. The Internet discovered her beauty and her mixed heritage — Norwegian, African-American, Native-American and French. Still only semi-hyped, she might have been the face of American track here, because nobody else on the US team seems to want the job. In such a life, what are two more hurdles? Two too many. The next-to-last hurdle got her. She stumbled, lost what had been a secure lead and finished seventh, collapsing to the track in disbelief.
“I almost never hit a hurdle. It’s a shame it was in the biggest race of my life,” said Jones, who was barely visible in the track world in college, yet kept herself going on the track circuit as a waitress, personal trainer — any and every job — though she couldn’t afford the training programs of more famous athletes.
Jones could sense danger.
“The hurdles were coming up very fast,” she said, meaning her stride might be a fraction too long. “It’s like maximum velocity in a car when you’re going into a turn. You make it. Or you crash and burn. Today I crashed and burned.” If anything, the Jamaican-born Richards’ bronze medal was more deflating than Jones’ stumble because Richards has been a powerhouse in track for years. She too was poised to be the US track star after the disappointments of Tyson Gay and Bernard Lagat, both considered before the Olympics as possible double gold winners in individual events. “Every (major) championship, I come up short,” Richards said. “To think of four more years is just too much.”
Then Richards talked about her faith, her belief that everything, including her injuries, was for a reason, part of a learning process to prepare her for this night in the Bird’s Nest.
“I don’t know what lesson I have left to learn,” she said, distraught. “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.”
In track, pressure takes unusual forms, especially the kind of pressure that builds toward an event that occurs only once every four years. Long-laid plans are hard to follow. In time, Richards might suspect there was a reason for her hamstring barking. She went out fast, too fast, asking of herself just one notch more than she had to offer. Something had to give. It just happened to be the hammy. Seldom is an athlete more visibly crushed than Jones. Certainly China’s Liu Xiang was more deeply shaken by his Achilles’ injury and subsequent withdrawal Monday.
But Jones’ whole body shook as she talked, trying to compose herself. “I’m happy for the girls who won. You have to get over all 10 hurdles. Today, I was not meant to be champion,” said Jones, now 26. “What can you do but try again?”
With that, the tears started and she walked away. In track, age is relatively forgiving to hurdlers. Because technique and experience are so vital, 30 might not be too old for Jones to try again in London in 2012.
But will her blink of mini-fame, her one bright season when she posted the fastest time in the world in her event be enough to bankroll her for four more years?
For every Dawn Harper, who was picked for bronze yet won the 100-meter hurdles, there is not just one athlete in pain. Damu Cherry, the pick for silver, didn’t medal either.
So, we can tell Liu of China, and America’s long list of disappointed speedsters — Gay, Terrance Trammell, Cherry, Richards and Jones among them — that they’ll wake up in the morning, still be Olympians, world-class athletes and young enough to continue great careers. They might not want such sympathy for a while. Let them finish kicking the furniture. They were so close. Just 50 more meters without an injury. Two more hurdles to cross.
Sometimes, the best words we can find — “you tried your best” and “try again” — just don’t sound like enough.
