Like most track athletes, Tiffany Ross-Williams has had a life-long dream of running in the Olympic Games.
Unlike most, she’ll get to fulfill it.
Running out of lane five, Ross-Williams held off Queen Harrison of Virginia Tech and Sheena Tosta in the 400-meter hurdles to win her second U.S. championship and first Olympic Trials in a time of 54.03 seconds.
“This is something I’ve been dreaming of all my life, to be an Olympian,” she said. “To finally make the U.S.A. Olympic team, I feel privileged, it’s a great honor.”
Behind Ross-Williams, there was some drama coming off the 10th hurdle. Lashinda Demus, the 2005 World Championships silver medalist, was in second place, but faded to fourth, just behind the hard-charging Harrison and Tosta.
Harrison also caught a break when Miriam Barnes clipped a hurdle and fell to the track, tumbling into her lane. Harrison had to leap over her a little bit, but recovered well enough to come back for second.
“I had to go around her and jump at the same time, so it was my extra hurdle,” she said. “Stuff like that happens all the time.”
The next step for the American trio will be to medal in Beijing.
“I just have to stay healthy and I’ll be able to medal at the Olympics,” Ross-Williams said.
The women’s discus throw was dominated by Aretha Thurmond from start to finish. Thurmond took the lead with her first throw, then extended it on her second with her winning mark of 213 feet, 11 inches.
For Thurmond, the breakthrough couldn’t have come at a better time.
“Everywhere I went this year I lost,” she said. “You just gotta keep working hard and you’ll get the reward.”
Suzy Powell-Roos qualified for her third Olympic team, while Stephanie Brown Trafton will make her second trip.
Powell-Roos moved past Stephanie Brown Trafton from third place into second on her final throw, while 2007 runner-up Becky Breisch finished in fourth, just over five feet back of Brown Trafton.
“The competition today was really awesome,” Brown Trafton said. “It’s the first time all year that I feel we’ve really stepped it up. Aretha’s (throw) was a tough one to beat.”
The Olympic ‘A’ standard rule took its first victim of the Trials in the women’s triple jump when second-place finisher Shakeema Welsch failed to lock up a wind-legal ‘A’ standard. She jumped 46-10 in the final, farther than the ‘A’ standard of 46-7.25, but because it was aided by a 3.5-meters-per-second tailwind, it will not be accepted, the USATF announced.
The same thing happened to Welsch in 2004, when she finished second in Sacramento only to not meet the ‘A’ standard then, either.
The two triple jumpers who will represent the U.S. in Beijing are Shani Marks and Erica McLain.
Marks won the event with a jump of 47-2.25, third-best ever by an American and a Hayward Field record. She finished fourth in the Olympic Trials in 2004 and won the U.S. Championships last year.
“It all hasn’t quite sunk in yet,” she said. “You know this has been the goal for five years so to actually finally get there I am overwhelmed and just really thankful.”
McLain, who just graduated from Stanford, was the third-place finisher, jumping 45-9.75. Since McLain and Marks were the only two Americans with the Olympic ‘A’ standard going into the Trials, and no one else was able to reach the standard, the U.S. will only send two triple jumpers to Beijing.
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