Facing One Last Hurdle Devers Again Sets Her Sights On Earning An Olympic Double

When Gail Devers is remembered from Barcelona, it is often more for her heartbreaking tumble in the 100-meter hurdles than her gold medal in the 100-meter dash. An Olympic double was so close.

After winning gold Saturday in the 100, she’s knocking at the door again.

Four years ago, Devers was one hurdle away from two golds. Her lead was commanding. But she brushed the final hurdle with her lead leg, lost her balance and crawled across the finish in fifth place.

“I always look at things that happen in my life as learning experiences,” said Devers, whose story of overcoming Graves’ disease has been well-documented. “From the time I picked myself off the track, it was about refocusing, being extra-motivated to get out and get the job done. It’s definitely brought me back four years later.

“Now, my goal is to pretend like I’m running 11 hurdles, just to make sure I get over the 10th hurdle on my feet.”

With a win in Wednesday’s hurdles final, Devers would match Fannie Blankers-Koen’s dash-hurdle double from the 1948 Olympics. Her chief rivals figure to be Sweden’s Ludmila Engquist (formerly of Russia), Brigita Bukovec of Slovakia and Natalya Shekhodanova of Russia.

Devers has battled a hamstring injury much of the last two years. After sitting out most of 1994, she ran only the hurdles last year, claiming the tender hamstring could handle the controlled velocity of hurdling but might snap if she tried to sprint all-out.

In the words of her boyfriend, triple-jump gold medalist Kenny Harrison: “One of us always seems to have an injury. So it helps to have someone who understands track and field, someone who knows what you’re going through.”

That was true with Devers as she struggled to get ready for the Olympic Trials and the Games. The injury flared up as she warmed up for the Millrose Games in early February, ending her indoor season. Then, returning to the 100-meter dash in May, she was a distant second to Gwen Torrence at the Atlanta Grand Prix.

“I just needed to run,” she said. “It’s amazing how much you forget not running that race in two years. It had been a very long time.”

Devers, 29, didn’t initially see herself as a sprinter. She started out running cross country and next shuffled down to the 800 meters (career-best of 2:11) at Sweetwater High in National City, Calif. Come her senior year, she tied for fourth in the California state meet’s team standings, winning the 100 and 100 hurdles and taking second in the long jump.

“Each year, someone suggested a different event and I’d try it,” said Devers, the daughter of a Baptist minister. “Eventually, I got to the 100. It was, ‘This is short, I think I’ll stay here. Not go around the track so many times.’

“I started running the hurdles more for a change. Everybody said, ‘You’re too little to do that.’ “

Short at 5-foot-4, maybe. But strong. Her longtime coach, Bobby Kersee, jokes that her arms are “like spaghetti,” but she has unusual lower body strength. Weighing 125 pounds, Devers says she’s squat-lifted 450 pounds.

It was that blend of speed and strength that caught the eye of Kersee, then an assistant coach at UCLA, and Devers became the first girl in her high school to earn an athletic scholarship.

“A couple of guys got football and basketball scholarships, but it was never heard of for a female,” she recalled. “It was something to get a scholarship for something I love doing - running.”