 |
| |
|
 |
 |
 |
Inside Track and Field Posted: Tuesday July 23, 2002 5:16 PMAt 35, three-time Olympian Gail Devers is having the finest outdoor season of her career By Brian Cazeneuve
In Devers's case it also does wonders for your hurdling. At 35, when her body should be encountering obstacles as formidable as the barriers on the track, Devers is enjoying the finest outdoor season of her 19-year career. The two-time Olympic 100-meter champ is focusing on the 100-meter hurdles this season and has won nine races and clocked eight of the year's 12 fastest wind-legal times, including the world-leading 12.40 that she ran in Lausanne on July 2. Training by herself on a high school track in Atlanta, Devers is relying more on videotape to straighten out technical imperfections and less on guidance from longtime coach Bob Kersee, now living in St. Louis, whom she calls only occasionally. "I'm seeing things from the tapes I didn't realize before," she says. "Now I can feel what I do and change it in mid-race." Since her collapse over the final hurdle cost her a gold medal at the 1992 Olympics, Devers has struggled to shake the habit of throttling back and holding her arms closer to her side whenever she gets too close to a hurdle. "Now I tell myself to get the lead leg back down as quickly as possible. Don't float over the hurdles. Don't ease your speed," she says. "It's hard because your tendency when you feel close to the hurdles is to compensate by doing things that make you go slower." Devers is trying to strengthen not only her technique but also her sport. "Especially in the States, track and field is dying," she says. "If you don't change it, that's your fault." She has put on premeet clinics around the U.S. and in Europe, addressing young foreign athletes abroad with "Boo!" and "Yea!" when evaluating technique. She recently received a diamond for breaking a track record in Stockholm's 90-year-old Olympic Stadium and will soon auction it off to help pay for the resurfacing of the track at her high school in National City, Calif. Devers may come into more riches by the end of the season. Should she win the final three Golden League meets in Europe, she'll earn a piece of the $500,000 jackpot that will be divided by those athletes who win their event at all seven league meets. Not bad for a woman who just keeps getting better with age. Issue date: July 29, 2002
For more Inside Track and Field see this week's issue of Sports Illustrated, on newsstands Wednesday, July 24. Click here to subscribe to SI.
|
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||||
