News06 May 2011


For Jones, slow road back from injury began in Doha - Samsung Diamond League

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Lolo Jones at the pre-meet press conference in Doha (© Bob Ramsak)

There were witnesses, back in Beijing, to the private anguish of Lolo Jones. In the aftermath of her Olympic 100m hurdles final, where she clipped the penultimate barrier and suffered an immediate status change from favourite-about-to-win to staggering seventh placer, she was seen crying to herself in a hallway, mouthing the word “Why?” over and again.

It was a savage turn of fate. But then Jones has never had it particularly easy. This, after all, was the young woman who had attended eight schools in as many years as her single mother struggled to support her family of six, at one point having to live in the basement of a church.

Three years after her high profile fall, Jones is established as one of the sport’s most successful and popular figures, with two World indoor titles to her credit. But in the space of the last few months another of life’s hurdles has risen before her in the form of an injury that has tested her both physically and mentally.

Jones’s normal preparations for an outdoor season have been entirely disrupted by the sciatic nerve problem which cut short her indoor campaign in Europe after just two races and sent her back to the United States to seek medical advice, barely able to walk.

Which is why her first big race of the season, here at the initial Samsung Diamond League meeting in Doha, was always going to be a tense affair.

In the event, just as she had almost predicted, victory went to Jones’s American colleague Kellie Wells, whose solid base of an unbeaten indoor season helped her to come through with a late burst to take the opening Diamond League 100m hurdles title in a world leading – and personal-best equalling – time of 12.58, with Jones having to settle for third place in 12.67 on the track where she had won the first Diamond League title the previous year in 12.63.

Not too much difference there. And it was good enough on a night when she was due to hasten out of the Qatar Sports Club stadium to the airport for a midnight, 10-hour flight to Japan, where she will put her relative mobility to a further swift test in the IAAF World Challenge meeting in Kawasaki on Sunday (8), after which she planned to go on to another World Challenge event in Daegu on Thursday (12).

“I’m not putting high expectations on this early part of the season,” she said. “I felt my nerve a little bit in warm-up, but not really in the race.”

She added that it had been useful to spend a few days in her hotel room concentrating on her rehab exercises.

Before the race, Jones recounted how she had come off the back of a defeat at the Drake Relay in home town of Des Moines.

“I lost last year as well, and I went on to win five Diamond Leagues, so I haven’t really gone into panic mode just yet,” she added.

“My concern is my injury this year from the indoor. Normally I do about seven or eight races in Europe, where I get my confidence up and this year that just didn’t happen.

“My side was inflamed after two races and I had to go back to the US and saw numerous doctors. So not having that base I didn’t have the confidence of just running.”

“I just felt race rusty,” she said of her Drake Relays appearance. “I felt like the sharpness I would normally have coming off a strong indoors was just not there.

“I just need races right now. I’ve got a string of ‘em,  and  I’m just looking forward to shaking off the rust and getting back into the groove of things. I don’t know where I’m at. I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to get back into it. I’m not a Tyson Gay or a Usain Bolt who’s going to race four races a year. I’d rather race four races in - a week.”

Jones laughed at what she had just said. But there was no doubting its heartfelt nature.

Asked about her injury, she had responded cautiously.

“It’s better than indoors,” she said. “Because I’ve been working on it.  I couldn’t even jog or run, I could barely even walk. I still feel pain. I don’t think it’s going to be healed until the end of the season. But I can hurdle with it now. And so I’ll take it.”

But the question of how fit she actually was, in terms of percentage, gave her pause.

 “Ooh.. that’s a really  good question,” she responded. “I guess I would say– 90 per cent? I still feel pain, I just have to stay on the rehab exercises. It’s just a tedious injury.

“I almost wish I had torn my hamstring and exactly know how many weeks I would be  out. But this injury, it’s a nerve, so it’s all about when it calms down, and it’s on its own time and its.. well, I never want an injury from a nerve again.”

The nerve injury has not been the only lingering discomfort in Jones’s world. She is aware of the fact that her two World indoor titles in 2008 and 2010 have yet to be counterbalanced with big outdoor championship victories.

“I’m definitely happy with my indoor success,” she said. “But just because of my Olympic failure there are people who try to peg me as not so strong outdoors, even though I’ve won just as many USA outdoor titles as I have indoors.

“So I don’t know, I like both equally. I’d love to get the World record indoors, but at the same time, outdoors,  I want more success."

The opening Diamond League of the season looked like it might be a useful step in that direction.

Mike Rowbottom for the IAAF

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