Gail Devers (USA) wins the 60m final in Budapest (© Getty Images)
Three weeks ago, the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Budapest weren’t even on her competition schedule, yet 37-year old Gail Devers (USA) came to the Hungarian capital and with a plan in hands: to achieve a historic sprint double of winning both the 60m dash and the 60m Hurdles.
Devers successfully tackled the first half of her challenge today. After winning both her morning heat (in the fastest qualifying time of 7.15) and her afternoon semi-final (7.15 again), the former double Olympic 100m champion sprinted from gun to tape to win her third 60m World Indoor title in 7.08.
The victory in the event which she also won at the 1993 and 1997 World Indoor Championships was anything but a certainty as coming into the final both Kim Gevaert of Belgium and Christine Arron of France both looked serious title candidates too.
But the American’s 10-year experience of global championships had the better - yet again - of her younger rivals.
European Indoor champion Gevaert who improved on her National record three times this season - and came to the limelight two weeks ago when defeating maternity-leave returning Marion Jones in Birmingham - managed to hold on to a fabulous silver medal in yet another Belgian record 7.12, while Belarus’ Yuliya Nesterenko grabbed the bronze with the same time.
Arron who felt a twinge in both her hamstrings during the final and could therefore not accelerate as she would have wanted to had to content with a very disappointing 7th in 7.21.
Devers was very expressive in her celebrations and delighted to share her joy with the world-wide media gathered in the Sportarena spending more than one hour between interviews, press conferences and signing autographs.
With her now famous charisma and her ever present optimism, the three-time World 100m Hurdles champion described how the “double challenge” came along.
I needed speed work
“Two days before the meeting in Fayetteville (14 Feb), I asked my agent if he could check and see if the time-table would enable me to run the dash as well as the hurdles there. I needed speed work and since I train on my own (with just the company of my 8-pound dog!) I needed to find someone to run with me.”
“I didn’t really plan to come to Budapest back then but the good results made me start thinking. I wanted to do something that had never been done before so I thought the challenge of a double would motivate me.”
Devers is used to doubling-up and not so long ago at the World Championships in Paris Saint-Denis she finished 8th in the 100m final but didn’t manage to qualify for the 100m Hurdles final.
“I feel very blessed. I am very thankful for the victory today. I have taken each round at a time not thinking about what was coming next and although I wasn’t very pleased with the way I ran the second round, I am grateful that I managed to come and take the win.”
“I am not too sure how the final went. I would have to watch the video to tell you really. I did not have the best of starts but I am thankful I didn’t panic, and then managed to get back into the race.”
Over the years Devers has been one of the very few world top athletes who have been able to be as successful on the flat as over the hurdles, and although one tends to automatically categorize her as a hurdle specialist, she is keen to prove one wrong.
“I don’t prefer one event over the other. They both represent a different challenge but one that I like to take up. You can’t really say that I am afraid of challenge.”
Devers is now three races and 15 hurdles away from successfully completing her double challenge but history has proved that however much a favourite she is for retaining the title she won in Birmingham last year, the win is never secure until she actually crosses the finish line.
No tactical change
The memory of her failing to qualify for the final in Paris World Championships last summer is still fresh but Devers refuses to change her tactics.
“Hurdling is all about rhythm but I am never going to back up my speed. For me everything is about running fast times. In Paris I may have not clipped that hurdle and made it through to the final if I had controlled my speed. But that wouldn’t have been me.”
“Now that I have new found speed I just want to clear the hurdles. But I am not going to back up my speed.”
Devers who will be back on the track on Sunday for another “busy day at work” dedicated her win to her agent’s wife’s mother who suffered a heart attack.
Praise for Gevaert
Devers also had kind words for Gevaert who was her strongest competitor today.
“I remember Kim from a few years ago when I was in Belgium and I actually presented an award to her. I remember telling her she had great potential and I was right. I see her being around for a long time!”
Devers may well be right given the enormous progress the Belgian athlete has made this year in an event which she says is not hers.
“I am very happy with my silver medal,” said Gevaert. “This is my first medal at a World championships and my whole season has been fantastic. My main aim remains the 200m. To be honest the 60m was more of a distraction from my training schedule than an objective in itself!”
The three rounds of the 60m Hurdles will be no distraction for Devers who be aiming to become the first woman ever to defend her title in the history of the World Indoor Championships 60m Hurdles history.
Much younger rivals again
The fastest woman so far this season at 60m Hurdles (7.76), Devers will once again have to battle it out with much younger rivals including reigning World 100m Hurdles champion Perdita Felicien of Canada, and the second fastest this year at ^)m Hurdles Susanna Kallur of Sweden who are both 14 years younger than Devers.
Let us just wait and see if experience will pay again.
IAAF
