[ad_1]
Mu appealed, and USATF officials reviewed the video late at night but ultimately rejected Mu’s protest. Kersey said Mu was stabbed by nails, burned on the track and had an ankle injury.
“She’s going to need a few days to heal,” Kersey said.
Mu stood up and finished the race, but finished more than 22 seconds behind winner Nia Adkins, who ran 1:57.36. After the race, Mu fought back tears and quickly walked off the track and through the tunnel. She declined to be interviewed.
She was running on the outside, surrounded by tightly packed runners, and was about to turn left toward eventual third-place finisher Juliette Whitaker when she tripped and fell, with three runners behind her jumping over and around her in a panic.
Mu is not the first athlete to have this happen. One of the most memorable and heartbreaking moments on the track happened eight years ago in the same event, when Alicia Montano, who was looking to return to the Olympics, tripped during the final sprint and was left crying on the track.
“I feel a little bit like a mama bear,” said Montano, who was interviewed inside the track over the PA system this week. “But the race is brutal at times. It’s two laps, a tight race, and everybody’s nervous, trying to figure out where they want to be in the race.”
The Olympic trials were Murray’s first tournament of the season, and she has been battling injuries all season. She was in good form in the first two rounds, and Kersey said her season is looking up.
But in the 800m final, she hadn’t even completed half a lap.
Despite the fall, Mu will still be able to travel to Paris as a member of the U.S. relay team; she was a key part of the team that won the gold medal in the 4×400 at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago.
Mu, who won the NCAA Championships, National Championships, World Championships and Olympic titles before turning 21, took home a bronze medal at last year’s World Championships. Afterward, she admitted that as one of track and field’s rising stars, she needed to step away from all the pressure, social media and other demands that come with it.
In an interview before this week’s competition in Eugene, she said she has rediscovered her love for the sport and is looking forward to becoming a serial champion.
She dominated at this distance in part because of her huge strides, and that may have been the reason she failed in this race in which she was the favorite.
“I heard it and my reaction at the time was ‘OK, keep running, it wasn’t you,'” Ally Wilson, who finished second, said of the commotion that led to Mu’s fall. “Unfortunately, it’s part of the race. Things like this can happen.”
Anna Hall’s Comeback
Mu’s 800m time was in stark contrast to that of heptathlete Anna Hall less than half an hour earlier.
Hall won the 800 meters — the seventh and final event of the two-day heptathlon — to take the title and advance to the Olympics, three years after a hurdles error cost her qualification for the Tokyo Games and just six months after knee surgery left her doubtful she would make it in time for Paris.
She cried, too, after the race as she walked to the stands to hug the sport’s greatest American, two-time Olympic champion Jackie Joyner-Cursey.
“I’m almost in shock,” Hall said. “This year has been so hard. And it’s in 2021. The journey to get here has been a lot harder than I thought it would be.”
Other dramas
There was drama elsewhere on a busy night that included six finals.
In the women’s 5000m, Elle St-Pierre barely beat Elise Craney by 0.02 seconds in 14:40.34. Both will compete in the Olympics.
Additionally, Vashti Cunningham, who has won 13 consecutive U.S. indoor and outdoor high jump titles as of this week, needs to win the play-in event to finish third and make the third Olympic team.
Waiting Game
Quincy Wilson, 16, finished sixth in the 400m final in 44.94, his third time under the 45-second mark in three starts.
Now, he will wait to see if USA Track and Field invites him to join the relay team.
“I just know I gave it everything I had,” he said. “I’m not going to be too disappointed. I’m 16 and I’m doing it at an adult level.”
[ad_2]
Source link
