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Re: Jamaica Olympics Central
<span style="font-style: italic"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BlackStar</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Yuri_</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I don't know what it is w/this chick - she just can't seem to pull it out. All beauty & marketing and no substance ... ? </div></div>Fourth place in the Olympics doesn't indicate lack of substance to me. I see lots of people giving her a hard time because she gets so much media attention but it doesn't seem undeserved. I'd rather hear about Lolo than Sharapova (for example) any day. </div></div></span>
...From the Washington Post, before the race - the better US runner delivers but can't get the attention
<span style="font-size: 17pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">Dawn Harper seeks validation, Lolo Jones justification in women’s 100-meter hurdles</span></span>
By Rick Maese, Published: August 6
LONDON — Lolo Jones was leading the race at the Beijing Games when she clipped the second-to-last hurdle and saw her hopes for an Olympic medal disappear. The other runners burst across the finish line, but everyone at the Bird’s Nest was focused on Jones, pounding the track with her hand and unable to stop the tears. In four years, no one has stopped paying attention.
Dawn Harper was crying that day, too. From humble beginnings in St. Louis, she had to borrow someone else’s shoes to run in Beijing. While the world watched Jones stumble, Harper was the first across the finish line, an elated 24-year-old gold medalist.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Still a faint blip on the radar, Harper is in London now, trying to become the first woman to defend the Olympic 100-meter hurdles title, yet Jones is the one who garners the attention, the cover of Time magazine, the lucrative sponsorships. It’s Jones who struggled to qualify for the Olympics and still flew to Los Angeles two days later to appear on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”</span>
Frustrating?
“Hmmm,” said Harper, pausing to consider her words. “At one point, it was. I don’t want to lie and say that it wasn’t. .&#8201;.&#8201;. I have dropped to my knees and just prayed about it and said, ‘I know that I’m blessed just to be here.’
While Jones tries to redeem her Beijing blunder and justify all the attention Tuesday night, the more accomplished Harper might stand the better chance to add to the United States’s modest medal haul on the track. There’s also American teammate Kellie Wells, who last month became the lone hurdler to beat speedy Australian Sally Pearson this year.
[...]
After struggling to even qualify at the U.S. trials, Jones posted her best time of the year in Monday’s first-round heat, crossing the finish line in 12.68 seconds. Wells won her race, too, finishing in 12.69 seconds, and Harper posted a 12.75 to also advance.
The biggest surprise in the first round came in the final race when Jamaica’s Brigitte Foster-Hylton, the second-faster hurdler of the year and a four-time Olympian, hit the fifth hurdle with her trail leg and failed to advance.
Pearson posted the top time (12.57) and is clearly the favorite, having notched the world’s three fastest marks of the year. She finished her first-round heat in 12.57 seconds.
Just three weeks, Wells topped the reigning world champ by two-hundredths of a second with a mark of 12.54. Pearson had suffered a fall during warm-ups, and her time was much slower than the 12.4 she’d posted a week earlier. Wells played down any benefits to having beaten Pearson across the finish line.
“A win is a win no matter who you get it against,” Wells said.
<span style="font-weight: bold">While Harper won’t have to borrow shoes for Tuesday’s race, her list of sponsors still pales in comparison to Jones’s portfolio, which includes Asics, Red Bull and McDonald’s among others. Harper’s Web site lists three sponsors, one of which is a scrub-brush for feet.</span>
Harper knows the only way to make people remember her name is to win, and if she does that Tuesday, she’ll forever be listed in Olympic record books.
“Nothing someone else gets can take away from my journey, can take away from the joy that I have,” she said.
<span style="font-style: italic"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BlackStar</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Yuri_</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I don't know what it is w/this chick - she just can't seem to pull it out. All beauty & marketing and no substance ... ? </div></div>Fourth place in the Olympics doesn't indicate lack of substance to me. I see lots of people giving her a hard time because she gets so much media attention but it doesn't seem undeserved. I'd rather hear about Lolo than Sharapova (for example) any day. </div></div></span>
...From the Washington Post, before the race - the better US runner delivers but can't get the attention
<span style="font-size: 17pt"><span style="font-weight: bold">Dawn Harper seeks validation, Lolo Jones justification in women’s 100-meter hurdles</span></span>
By Rick Maese, Published: August 6
LONDON — Lolo Jones was leading the race at the Beijing Games when she clipped the second-to-last hurdle and saw her hopes for an Olympic medal disappear. The other runners burst across the finish line, but everyone at the Bird’s Nest was focused on Jones, pounding the track with her hand and unable to stop the tears. In four years, no one has stopped paying attention.
Dawn Harper was crying that day, too. From humble beginnings in St. Louis, she had to borrow someone else’s shoes to run in Beijing. While the world watched Jones stumble, Harper was the first across the finish line, an elated 24-year-old gold medalist.
<span style="font-weight: bold">Still a faint blip on the radar, Harper is in London now, trying to become the first woman to defend the Olympic 100-meter hurdles title, yet Jones is the one who garners the attention, the cover of Time magazine, the lucrative sponsorships. It’s Jones who struggled to qualify for the Olympics and still flew to Los Angeles two days later to appear on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”</span>
Frustrating?
“Hmmm,” said Harper, pausing to consider her words. “At one point, it was. I don’t want to lie and say that it wasn’t. .&#8201;.&#8201;. I have dropped to my knees and just prayed about it and said, ‘I know that I’m blessed just to be here.’
While Jones tries to redeem her Beijing blunder and justify all the attention Tuesday night, the more accomplished Harper might stand the better chance to add to the United States’s modest medal haul on the track. There’s also American teammate Kellie Wells, who last month became the lone hurdler to beat speedy Australian Sally Pearson this year.
[...]
After struggling to even qualify at the U.S. trials, Jones posted her best time of the year in Monday’s first-round heat, crossing the finish line in 12.68 seconds. Wells won her race, too, finishing in 12.69 seconds, and Harper posted a 12.75 to also advance.
The biggest surprise in the first round came in the final race when Jamaica’s Brigitte Foster-Hylton, the second-faster hurdler of the year and a four-time Olympian, hit the fifth hurdle with her trail leg and failed to advance.
Pearson posted the top time (12.57) and is clearly the favorite, having notched the world’s three fastest marks of the year. She finished her first-round heat in 12.57 seconds.
Just three weeks, Wells topped the reigning world champ by two-hundredths of a second with a mark of 12.54. Pearson had suffered a fall during warm-ups, and her time was much slower than the 12.4 she’d posted a week earlier. Wells played down any benefits to having beaten Pearson across the finish line.
“A win is a win no matter who you get it against,” Wells said.
<span style="font-weight: bold">While Harper won’t have to borrow shoes for Tuesday’s race, her list of sponsors still pales in comparison to Jones’s portfolio, which includes Asics, Red Bull and McDonald’s among others. Harper’s Web site lists three sponsors, one of which is a scrub-brush for feet.</span>
Harper knows the only way to make people remember her name is to win, and if she does that Tuesday, she’ll forever be listed in Olympic record books.
“Nothing someone else gets can take away from my journey, can take away from the joy that I have,” she said.
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