A step behind with a little less than half the race to go, Allyson Felix found the extra gear she needed to win her second straight U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials 200m dash.
“That’s where my strength is,” Felix said.
Felix’s bad start didn’t keep her from running easily the fastest time in the world this year, a very wind-aided 21.82. Displeased with the early part of her race, Felix didn’t expect to run as fast as she did, just thankful to make her first Olympic team of this Trials.
“I can fine-tune now but it was just all about making the team,” she said.
Since winning the silver in Athens in 2004, Felix is the two-time defending world champion in the 200. Sunday’s win also made it four U.S. outdoor titles in five years for the “relieved” champion.
Felix holds the top U.S. time in the 400 as well, and used her training for the longer distance down the homestretch to run past everyone in the field.
Finishing in second place meant making a second Olympic team for Muna Lee, the 100m champion, finishing in 21.99. In contrast to Felix, Lee had an excellent start that found her neck and neck with Felix with 100 meters to go, including that brief lead. It was similar to Lee’s second place at the 2004 Trials in Sacramento. She finished seventh in Athens.
Even in a loss, Lee found reason for excitement.
“I actually got to see what it’s like to run right next to her and hold for the most part,” said Lee, who called her first 150 meters of the race the best “I’ve run in a long time.”
“It made me a little more confident,” Lee said.
Lee, Felix and Marshevet Hooker can expect to be a part of a U.S. relay team in Beijing, by proving their speed over two events each during the Trials.
Hooker dove for third place in 22.20. Before the final, that time would have been the best in the U.S. this year.
Her spill at the finish line cost her some skin on her hips, elbows and hands, but gave her a ticket to her first Olympics.
“I felt relieved, I felt blessed, I felt joy, I felt everything at once,” Hooker said, “and then I felt the sting.”
Hooker’s dive edged out Lauryn Williams – who beat Hooker to third place in last weekend’s 100m – by a hundredth of a second ahead of Williams.
“I’m not disappointed,” Williams said. “I think me and Marshevet are probably even now. She beat me out one, I beat her out one.”
The runners will have until the middle of August to sharpen their races until the Olympics. It’s time Felix won’t use to do anything but prepare for her first individual Olympic gold medal.
“It’s not done yet hardly,” Felix said. “Now it’s time to go back and work.”
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