TUCSON, Ariz. “”mdash; Somehow Jonathan Williams had to redeem
himself.
As he prepared for the third and final race of the day at the
Pac-10 Championships on Saturday, the senior hurdler could only
think of redemption after a pair of earlier missteps.
“(My knees) hurt when I was warming up on the
hurdles,” Williams said. “But I knew I was way more
hurt on the inside.”
Already during the day, Williams had twice cost the Bruin track
and field team sorely needed points. The 400-meter hurdles would be
his last chance to fix the setbacks he had cost the team.
In his first event, the 4×100 relay, Williams dropped the baton
during the handoff from teammate Anthony Golston between the second
and third legs of the race. The Bruins couldn’t recover,
finished last, and were eventually disqualified.
With that mistake already weighing on his mind, Williams tried
to bounce back for the 110m hurdles. Once again he failed, falling
during that race, and again finishing dead last.
“There was a little bit of contact,” Williams said
of his high hurdles debacle. “But it all happened so fast. I
don’t know what happened.”
After the race Williams sat by himself crying, emotionally and
physically spent. His errors had cost the Bruins dearly in the team
competition and given Oregon a possible opportunity to pull away in
points.
And after all that had happened to him, he still had to pull
himself together for the 400m hurdles. With his knees bandaged but
aching after the fall, he went to the warm-up field and did his
best to rebound.
“I cried my eyes out,” Williams said. “My
coach told me to go there and let everything out so I could come
back without all that inside.”
But was it too late for salvation? Apparently not.
Williams finished second in the 400m hurdles in a personal
record 50.33 seconds, only behind teammate Brandon Johnson, who ran
the fastest time in the world this year. The unexpected one-two
punch beat out a field loaded with Oregon runners, and all but
clinched the team title for the Bruins.
“I was emotionally drained, but knew that I had to do
something,” he said. “I had to go to do something. I
finished near the top, with a personal record. I’ll take
that.”
Â
ATHENS BOUND?: Saturday’s dominating
performance by Johnson not only made him the world-leading 400m
hurdler, it brought him an invitation to Sacramento for the Olympic
trials.
Johnson’s blazing 48.85-second time is an automatic
qualifier to compete for a trip to this year’s Olympics in
Athens, Greece.
“I’m pretty proud about it,” Johnson said.
“I feel like I have a head start on what I wanted to do. At
first I was thinking about 2008, but now maybe I can compete in
2004.”