SAINT-DENIS, France — Sprint races are over in a blink. Devynne Charlton effectively blinked Saturday night, and it cost her a chance to medal at the Paris Olympics.
"I should have been ready,” the Purdue graduate said.
Charlton, despite a poor start leaving her in last place, finished sixth in the 100-meter hurdles at Stade de France.
She said a hurdler in an adjacent lane flinched, and she expected a recall. There was none.
“There was a lot of movement at the start,” Charlton said. “That was an uncharacteristic start for me. I kind of had to play catch-up the whole race, which isn’t my strong suit. I’m definitely proud of the way I fought back.”
Her time was 12.56 seconds.
Charlton, 28, was recruited to Purdue by former coach Lonnie Greene, who now coaches her at Kentucky. Coincidentally, Charlton’s training partner, Masai Russell, was the surprise gold medalist.
“If there’s one good takeaway from this race,” Charlton said, “it would be that.”
Russell’s time was 12.33.
Most of the 77,000 fans were shouting support for Cyrene Samba-Mayela, who led coming off hurdles 8, 9 and 10. She took silver in 12.34 for France’s only medal in track and field.
Puerto Rico’s Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, the defending gold medalist, took bronze in 12.36.
In three other Olympics – 1964, 1976, 1996 – was the margin as close as .01.
Russell and Camacho-Quinn were college hurdlers at Kentucky, as was Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who set a world record in the 400 hurdles. Six of the eight finalists have run in the NCAA system.
Charlton was coming off an indoor season in which she won a world championship in the 60-meter hurdles and set a world record. That is not the Olympics, though. She said she was in form to medal.
“You don’t get many shots at Olympic gold,” she said. “Four years is a long time.”
Charlton was an 11-time Big Ten champion and three times the Big Ten track athlete of the year. Another Boilermaker, Chuk Enekwechi finished sixth in the shot put in Paris.
Both are being inducted into the Leroy Keyes Purdue Athletics Hall of Fame this year.
Contact WTHR correspondent David Woods at dwoods1411@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: @DavidWoods007.
