American Joanna Hayes celebrates her victory Tuesday in the women's 100-meter hurdles. She set an Olympic record by winning in 12.37 seconds. (Eric Feferberg AFP/Getty Images) |
ATHENS, Greece - They stretched, they leaned, they reached out desperately into the sweet, sultry evening breeze with every last ounce of energy. But American Joanna Hayes and Canadian Perdita Felicien, both gold medal favorites, were going in totally opposite directions.
In the finals of the women's 100-meter hurdles Tuesday, they combined to create human athletic drama: the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
For Felicien, it was the worst moment of her competitive life, a Did Not Finish in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Fifteen meters from the start, one of her ruby-red spiked slippers crashed into the center of the first hurdle, nearly splitting it. She plunged onto the track, dragging down Russia's Irena Shevchenko, who was on her right in lane six.
You could see her reaching ... leaning ... grasping ... all to no avail.
For Hayes, it was the most exhilarating 12.37 seconds of her competitive life. She blazed down the track and was rewarded with an Olympic record and an Olympic gold medal for beating Ukrainian Olena Krasovska (12.45) and American Melissa Morrison (12.56).
She bounded across the finish line, then joyfully reached for the sky.
The 75,000 spectators gasped in one breath, then cheered in another.
Hayes, who spent much of June and July training in suburban St. Louis with Bobby and Jackie Joyner Kersee, danced and pranced and skipped around the track, wrapped in the stars and stripes. With blissful tears streaming down from under her dark sunglasses onto her cheeks, she waved to all the flag-waving spectators and posed for all the photographers who raced behind her.
Unlike other American medal winners, Hayes never bothered to try to be cool and dispassionate. She practically bubbled and floated on her victory lap. She laughed. She cried. Then she laughed some more. She acted like this was the greatest day of her life.
Of course, it was.
"Oh boy, this feels soooo good, better than I imagined," she said, beaming, after the race, clinging to a small American flag in her hand, wearing a larger one like a patriotic shawl. "I know (the USOC) wants us to be low-key and all, but I'm sorry, you only get one chance to run that victory lap. I have no idea if I'll ever have another Olympic moment, so hey, I told myself last night, 'If you get the chance, enjoy it.'"