By Gil LeBreton
glebreton@star-telegram.com
LONDON — DeeDee Trotter wanted the world record. And when DeeDee Trotter wants something, she doesn’t keep it to herself.
“Absolutely – I was trying to amp them up,” Trotter said after the U.S. women raced virtually alone to the finish line in winning the 4x400-meter relay Saturday night.
“I consider us the Dream Team of the 400. I figured if any team could do the world record, it was this squad.”
They came close, amazingly close considering that Trotter, Allyson Felix and Francena McCorory gave the Americans such a commanding lead – nearly three seconds at that point — that anchor Sanya Richards-Ross of Austin said she was actually worried about being “too much” ahead.
“I thought, ‘Omigosh, you don’t want to go too fast because you don’t want to mess it up,’” Richards-Ross said. “So I just kind of ran a safe leg, so that if anything happened I’d still be able to get home strong.”
Even a veteran such as Richards-Ross, though, who ran on Olympic gold medal 4x400 relay teams in Athens and Beijing, was impressed with the way the U.S. foursome dominated.
Trotter started from the blocks with a 50.2-second lap and then Felix, who had an outstanding Olympics, put the race in another zone with a 48.2 leg. McCorory’s leg was 49.39 and Sanya coolly took the baton home in 49.10.
It added up to 3:16.87. Russia was next at 3:20.23, with Jamaica getting the bronze.
No world record, but the Americans at least sniffed it.
There is a group of records in the women’s events that rolls the eyes of many of the world’s track fans and athletes. They were all set in the late-1980s and many of them are still standing — suspiciously so, it seems.
The Americans’ winning time Saturday is the third fastest ever run, behind only the Soviet Union’s and United States’ times at the 1988 Olympics.
The Ben Johnson Olympics. Just sayin’.
“There’s a feeling that the women’s records are extremely out there,” veteran Felix agreed. “You don’t want to put judgment on anyone, but it does get discouraging at times.”
Felix was part of the U.S. team that shattered one of those records, the 4x100-meter relay, on Friday night. That record had stood since then-East Germany set it in 1985.
Better things are yet to come in the 4x400, Trotter predicted.
Raised in Georgia and a product of the University of Tennessee, Trotter made the U.S. team in the 400 at the 2008 Trials while running with a broken bone in her left leg. And she has charmed the Olympics’ media audience at the Games with her anything-goes comments.
Someone asked the relay gold medalists Saturday what their experience at the London Games had been like. Trotter didn’t give her teammates a chance to respond.
“London is off the chain, OK?” she answered. “I’ve never been at a morning session where people were packed in that way, and these were people who had every knowledge of what was going on.
“And the Westfield (shopping) mall? What is that? It is packed to the roof, but somehow people are still moving, still shopping.
“You walk through the train station and people who don’t know you are hugging and congratulating you. They just made it a spectacular experience.”
Glee in the high jumpIn the quiet place where the high jumpers go before they’re thrown to the Olympic lions, the kid from New York, by way of Arizona and Duncanville, turned to her Russian rivals and said let’s pray.
Brigetta Barrett, Duncanville High class of 2009, it seems, doesn’t need to find reasons to pray. She just prays.
“It was a little unusual,” her Russian competitor, world champion Anna Chicherova, said. “But she was so sincere and touching.
“If you are sincere in your beliefs, it helps you.”
At 21, Barrett wasn’t expected to be among the high jump medalists at this Olympics. She finished second at the U.S. trials and five jumpers in the finals field Saturday had personal bests higher than her 6-7.
But when Barrett missed her first attempts at 6-5 1/2 and 6-6 3/4 and came back to clear both heights, suddenly there were only four competitors left.
And Brigetta Barrett, the college theater major, was singing.
The hymn was “I’m Available to You”, which she would memorably demonstrate to the Olympic media later. With two verses.
“I’m a theater arts major,” she said, as if that explained everything. “I like to sing.”
On her second attempt at 2.03 meters — 6 feet, 8 inches — Barrett slipped over the bar.
“I’m not going to lie — I kind of blacked out,” she said. “I was very scared. I know this is what we do, and people don’t really expect us to be afraid of a bar.
“But there’s a moment between step seven and eight where I have to decide if I’m really going to go for this jump or not. I was just like, ‘Go for it. Trust yourself and trust God.’
“I put my foot down and closed my eyes, and when I hit that mat without hitting the bar, I was like, ‘Thank you, Jesus.’ ”
She earned the silver medal on fewer misses at 6-8, with an emotional Chicherova winning the gold medal (6-8 3/4) after a season in which she’s been plagued by injuries.
As the always dramatic Russian anthem was played on the medals stand, Chicherova tried to sing along through the tears. She cried again later, as she recalled in Russian how people had supported her even through the injuries.
“I know the price of this medal,” she said.
For the effervescent Barrett, it was the first U.S. high jump medal since Red Oak’s Louise Ritter won gold in 1988.
After the race, Barrett went looking in the stands for her mother, who’s been battling breast cancer.
“I was scared for awhile that she wouldn’t be here to share this moment with me,” Brigetta said. “But my mom is a survivor.
“She’s a fighter and she teaches me how to fight. That’s why I needed to see her.”
High school reunionNobody leaves New Orleans, they told us.
Life was just too good in my hometown, said all my friends and all my relatives and my boss, sports editor Bob Roesler, the day he wagged a finger at me and told me that, by leaving, I was making a big mistake.
Maybe so. But I had to see where the world would take me, just like my friend and former high school classmate, Steve Bultman.
I’ve been in Fort Worth for 32 years. Bultman, if you don’t know him, has been in College Station for 13, coaching Texas A&M’s women swimmers.
He’s a great coach, and I’m not just saying that because we both graduated from Jesuit High in New Orleans in 1966.
I’ve seen Steve’s coaching resume — three of the past four conference championships, four NCAA top 10 finishes in a row. And I’ve asked around.
Steve Bultman, they all said, is a great swimming coach. Two of his Aggie swimmers, Breeja Larson and Cammile Adams, made it to London as part of the U.S. Olympic team.
And so did my fellow Jesuit Blue Jay. He was one of the coaches of the U.S. team here, reprising roles he had in Seoul in 1988 and again in 2008 when he helped coach the Estonia Olympic team.
Three Olympics as a coach. That’s outstanding. I think I’ve decided who’s going to get my vote for Blue Jay alumnus of the year.
“It’s been a great experience,” Bultman told me during our mini-high school reunion at the Olympics Aquatic Centre. “The facilities have been outstanding, not just the competition site, but also there’s another facility where the swimmers can practice and warm up or warm down when they need to.”
Bultman was a swimming superstar in high school and went on to compete at LSU. I was a backup-backup left-handed relief pitcher in high school, never got into any games and eventually also managed to graduate from LSU.
Steve’s route to London was probably better.
Our old high school celebrates its 165th anniversary this year. It’s produced its share of New Orleans mayors and White House Cabinet members. It’s the alma mater of Rusty Staub and Will Clark, and of Harry Connick Jr., and actor Jay Thomas, himself a member of the class of ’66.
I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to report from 16 Olympic Games now — nine Summer Olympics. My classmate Steve Bultman is right in calling this such a special experience.
Nobody leaves New Orleans, they told us. But we had to see where the world would take us.
And there we were last week, standing in the Aquatics Centre in London under the Olympic rings.
I’ll refrain here from singing the Jesuit fight song. But I’m tempted.
Bravo, Steve.
Gil LeBreton, 817-390-7697Twitter: @gilebreton
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