Harper’s focus finds rich rewards

Beijing, ChinaPrediction is a dangerous game in this business. Few who watched Lolo Jones skimming above the ten high hurdles in her first two races in Beijing this week would have bet against the American taking the gold on Tuesday night (19).

The only thing flying more accurately over the ground were the squadron of swallows which descend from the roof of the Bird’s Nest each evening to swoop over the infield before a session begins.

But this isn’t nature, it is sport. More than that, it’s the 100m Hurdles, and after the last few days we should have known. As athletes so often say, “Anything can happen.” And when it does it pays to have the wise words of an experienced coach in your head to guide you through.

Just ask Dawn Harper. The 24-year-old American completed a remarkable journey in Beijing to become her nation’s fourth Olympic 100m Hurdles champion.

To say it owed a lot to luck is missing the point. When Jones’ dreams were crumbling to the track two lanes inside her, Harper had the composure to stick to her task and take the biggest opportunity she’s ever had.

“Composure” isn’t quite the right word. “Focus,” she says. “That’s what it was. There are so many movements we have to go through that you notice so quickly when a hurdle comes up on you.

“In the twinkling of an eye you can get distracted. So you have to work on those things as well, on focusing on yourself. You have to be in your own zone.”

The message was drummed into Harper by her coach Bobby Kersee, the famous mentor to many a medal-wining hurdler, including such greats as Johanna Hayes, the previous Olympic champion, Gail Devers, an Olympic (flat 100m) and triple World champion, and double World champion Michelle Perry.

‘Focus on you, focus on you’

With that kind of pedigree it pays to listen. It certainly paid off for Harper as Kersee’s mantra to his latest protégé throughout the build-up to Tuesday’s final was “focus on you”.

“He would just yell at me during my warm up, ‘Focus on you, focus on you’,” says Harper. “It meant so much for him to be saying that. And he was yelling, so I was started thinking, ‘Oh, this must be serious’.

“He said, ‘You’re going to get on the podium’. He said, ‘The colour is up to you but you are getting on the podium.’ I saw him yesterday after my semi, and he said, ‘You’re putting it together but the colour of the medal is up to you.’

“For him to say those words to me, over and over, considering the people he’s coached before, he made me believe I could do it. Obviously he knows what he’s talking about, so I just figured, if the athletes who came before me did that, let me do it.”

JJK – a big inspiration

Harper has a close connection to another Kersee, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, or JJK, the former Olympic Heptathlon champion and Bobby’s wife.. Like JJK, Harper comes from East St Louis, in Illinois. It was while she was in high school there that she started hurdling and, inevitably, Joyner-Kersee was part of the reason.

“She has a foundation in town and runs a track meeting there,” says Harper. “I can’t remember when I first met her but when I was in high school she was a big inspiration. She told me anything is possible.”

Harper graduated from East St Louis High in 2002 after winning six state titles, three apiece in 100m and 300m hurdles. She moved to UCLA (University of Southern California) and, after graduating from college in 2006, joined Kersee’s training group, including Devers, Hayes and Perry.

In 2004 she’d finished 18th at the Olympic trials, going out in the quarter finals. And things weren’t looking good for this year’s Olympics either, when she had to have knee surgery at the end of February to remove a loose chip, and missed a month of training, something she, “kind of kept to myself”.

Four months later she made the Olympic team by just 0.007s, and two months after that she’s Olympic champion. “It’s kind of hard to believe,” she says. “I keep thinking, ‘It’s me. I’m the winner.’ It’s weird.

“I know I sound like a little kid but you know, you dream of this. There are people here that want a picture of me. Me? It’s weird.”

Not that she doesn’t have sympathy for Jones. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, because I know she had dreams too,” says Harper. “She wanted a gold medal as well. But the hurdles is about executing the race and going all the way through.”

He was gesturing - You did it

Such was her “focus” that even when she crossed the line Harper still wasn’t sure she’d won it.

“I looked up and thought it was me. Then I saw the Australian girl (Sally McLellan) celebrating so I stopped and thought, wait a minute, because I didn’t want to celebrate too soon.

“I’m usually pretty good at seeing what place I am, but with everything that went on I couldn’t see very well.”

Harper then spotted her father in the crowd. “He was gesturing, ‘You did it.’ I thought, ‘Wait a minute, he could be wrong.’ Then I saw that it was me, and that felt amazing. I was like, ‘Ok he’s right.’”

Putting your heart in it

Ironically, when she was at school her father had been the one who cautioned against a career in sports because he was worried about how she’d cope with the uncertainty, the ups and downs.

“He was just kind of saying, ‘Are you sure? I see your heart get broken, I see you happy.’ He was saying, ‘Make sure you put your whole heart into it and take it for what it’s worth.’”

No one could understand the ups and downs of sport more than Lolo Jones right now. After dragging herself off the track and into the waiting media melée, the US champion had the grace to congratulate her team mate, a gesture Harper appreciated.

“She came over to congratulate me and that really meant a lot to me,” she says. “For her to step outside of her own disappointment and say ‘Congratulations, it’s great an American got the medal,’ is a great gesture. She said: ‘Be humble and well done.’”

Coming from East St Louis, and with connections to the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation for education and community development, there seems little chance of arrogance from the new champion.

“Now I can go back to the kids and tell them ‘Look at me. Even if you’re from East St Louis, Illinois, you can achieve your dreams.”

All it takes is focus, she might add.

Matthew Brown for the IAAF