A couple of underdogs got things back on track for the Americans on Monday.
Angelo Taylor led a medals sweep in the men’s 400-meter hurdles and Stephanie Brown Trafton won a surprising gold in the women’s discus. A team that came into the day with no gold medals walked out with two.
“We wanted to uplift the track team,” Taylor said, “and bring home the sweep.”
Who better to lead than a comeback kid?
The Olympic champion in Sydney in 2000, Taylor was laying electrical wire 14 months ago, virtually out of the sport in the aftermath of an ugly legal imbroglio. He failed to make the final in Athens four years ago - he said he had stress fractures in both shins. In Beijing, he became the first 400-meter hurdler since Edwin Moses to win gold medals eight years apart.
He ran a personal-best time of 47.25 seconds, ahead of teammates Kerron Clement and Bershawn Jackson, who combined to produce the first sweep of the event since the U.S. did it in 1960.
“To go through what I went through and be back on top again - I’m just so blessed right now,” Taylor said.
It will take more performances like these to advance the conversation about this team being as good as the 1968 Mexico City squad, which won 28 medals - fewer events were contested then - and included Bob Beamon, Dick Fosbury, John Carlos and Tommie Smith.
Slowly, though, this American team is showing some depth.
There was the sweep.
There was Jenn Stuczynski’s pole vault silver, trailing only Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva, who set a world record. That Cold War-style rivalry got heated after the American said she hoped to “kick some Russian butt.”
There was Brown Trafton, who was considered a field filler more than a medal contender. She threw the discus 212 feet, 5 inches (64.74 meters) on her very first attempt, and it held up to give the U.S. team its first gold.
She didn’t make it out of Olympic qualifying four years ago, had only two throws over 200 feet before this year, and finished only third at the U.S. Olympic trials.
Not great credentials, but none of that matters now.
She won the first gold for a U.S. woman in the discus since Lillian Copeland in 1932 and only the second medal of any color since then.
“I came to the Bird’s Nest to lay a golden egg, and that’s what I did,” Brown Trafton said. “I am surprised we haven’t won more gold. But you know what? I hope this sets a trend.”
It did.
The hurdlers were considered sweep candidates, but the U.S. had learned over the first three days of the meet that there’s a big difference between being picked to do something and doing it.
Tyson Gay didn’t reach the 100-meter final. The U.S. women were shut out by a Jamaican sweep in the 100. Reese Hoffa finished seventh in the shot put. Bernard Lagat didn’t make it out of the semifinals in the 1,500.
The 1-2-3 in the hurdles wasn’t as shocking as Taylor leading the way.
Starting in Lane 6, he was racing in front from about the 150-meter mark on. Clement, the 2007 world champion, and Jackson closed the gap down the stretch, but it was a pretty easy victory for Taylor.
His gold at the Sydney Olympics was the high point in a career that got derailed, first with injuries, then when he was put on probation in a case that started when he was arrested after a police officer said he found Taylor naked in a car with a 15-year-old girl.
“I just had to stay strong,” Taylor said. “I had a lot of people in my corner encouraging me and looking after me.”
His sponsorship pulled, he took a job laying electrical cable in Atlanta - one that got him off work early enough so he could train in the afternoons.
The injuries started to heal and suddenly Taylor found himself in Olympic form. He finished third at the trials and peaked at exactly the right time.
There was no such fortune for host China, which lost defending champion 110-meter hurdler Liu Xiang, one of the country’s biggest Olympic stars, to a foot injury.
He lined up for his first qualifying heat, took a few strides out of the blocks, heard a gun that signaled a false start by another runner and then tore his numbers off and limped dejectedly to the tunnel, grimacing and clutching his leg. His hamstring had been a problem, but the tendon in his right foot flared up a couple of days ago, leaving him unable to go.
At least for the morning, the Liu news sent everything else at this meet to the back page - maybe a good thing for an American team that had gotten off to an unexpectedly poor start.
