The Australian flag flies proudly during ‘Sally Pearson’s race’
EVEN though our representative was 14,000kms away, an Australian flag flew proudly behind the blocks for the start of the women’s 100m hurdles final.
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IMMEDIATELY behind the starting blocks for the final of the women’s 100m hurdles an Australian flag flew proudly between the flags of Canada and the USA.
The difference was, the US and Canada had hurdlers in the race. Australia’s hurdler was 14,000kms away on the Gold Coast.
The 100m hurdles is Sally Pearson’s race. Or it was when she won gold four years ago at London in an Olympic record time of 12.35, and four years before that in Beijing, when she burst onto the scene with a silver medal that was remembered as much for Pearson’s reaction as her performance.
When the gun went off in Rio, Pearson was at home in Queensland watching on TV. She, more than anyone, knows what a tough, potentially dangerous event the hurdles can be.
In the second semi-final, held an hour earlier, Puerto Rico’s Jasmine Camacho-Quinn hit a hurdle and fell to the track, much like Pearson had in Rome in June 2015.
In Rio Camacho-Quinn climbed to her feet and exited the track in tears. Her Olympics were over, but her injuries were purely emotional, not physical.
The injuries Pearson suffered 14 months ago were horrendous.
As she crashed to the track, Pearson took the full weight of the fall on her left wrist, causing a shocking break and dislocation.
One of the first doctors to see the damage described it as “a bone explosion”.
Screaming in pain and shock as she sat on the track, Pearson looked down at her lower arm and feared the worst.
“I was terrified seeing my hand going in a different direction,” she told a reporter. “I thought they would have to amputate.”
As the wrist injuries slowly healed Pearson was further hampered by calf and tendon problems. When she finally returned to competition a year after her fall, it soon became obvious that she was a long way from the fitness levels required to defend her title.
A torn hamstring while training on the Gold Coast put the issue out of doubt.
Her Olympics has been restricted to sending tweets of support to team-members, but Pearson wasn’t the only hurdling superstar missing from the Olympic final.
American Kendra Harrison performed poorly at the US team trials in July, finishing sixth and missing the selection for Rio behind world champion Brianna Rollins, Nia Ali and Kristi Castlin.
A month later Harrison broke the 28 year-old world record of Bulgaria’s Yordanka Donkova with a run of 12.20.
No doubt Kendra Harrison was also watching the race on TV back home in the US as Rollins, Ali and Castlin finished 1-2-3.
Still, at least the names of both Harrison and Pearson appeared in the night’s program, as world record holder and Olympic record holder, and with Rollins stopping the clock at 12.48, they will remain for a while yet.
As Pearson tweeted immediately after the race: “My 12.35 still stands. Maybe I can break it in four years”.
And isn’t that worth waving a flag for?
Originally published as The Australian flag flies proudly during ‘Sally Pearson’s race’
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