TOKYO >> Puerto Rican hurdler Jasmine Camacho-Quinn stood behind the starting blocks at Olympic Stadium 10 minutes before high noon.
Behind her a giant Olympic flag swayed slightly in the breeze.
In front of her the Olympic 100 meter hurdles final, a race that five years earlier in Rio de Janeiro had brought her to her knees.
Camacho-Quinn was so distraught over stumbling her way to a disqualification in the 2016 Olympic semifinals she essentially went into self-imposed hiding at the University of Kentucky for much of the first semester after her return from Brazil.
“I felt embarrassed,” she said “like I let the whole country down.”
And then she decided to stop hiding.
“Five years ago I said that I wasn’t going to let that race determine my future,” Camacho-Quinn said.
Instead she will forever be defined by two brilliant races within 17 hours, the second of which Camacho-Quinn captured the 100 hurdles gold medal and so much more for Puerto Rico.
“I am pretty sure everybody is celebrating, is excited. They’ve been through so much,” Camacho-Quinn said referring to a series of earthquakes that have hindered efforts to recover from the devastation of Hurricane Maria in 2017. “For such a small country it gives people, little kids hope.”
She began sobbing and for a moment was unable to speak.
“I am just glad I am the person to do that. I am really happy right now (tears). Anything is possible.”
Camacho-Quinn was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the daughter of an American father, James Quinn, and a Puerto Rican mother, Maria Camacho. She decided to represent her mother’s native country in international competition.
“I’m 100 percent Puerto Rican,” she said.
At Kentucky she became the first freshman to win the NCAA 100 hurdles title and then turned pro.
“It’s been a roller coaster since I’ve been a pro,” she said.
With seven of 10 hurdles in the 2016 Olympic semifinal behind her, Camacho-Quinn appeared headed toward the final. But she clipped the eight hurdle throwing her off-stride, hit the ninth squarely with her lead leg, stumbling for three steps, unable to clear the 10th and final barrier. She lost her balance and swerved into the lane to her right, earning a disqualification, staggered across the finish line and dropped her knees, her face, her tears pressed against the track.
What she described as the “ups and downs” continued after Rio. Injuries kept her out of the 2019 World Championships in Doha.
But she put it together this season, riding a 13-race undefeated streak into Tokyo that included a 12.38 Diamond League victory in Florence.
Much of the pre-Olympic focus, however, was on Keni Harrison of the U.S., Camacho-Quinn’s former training partner.
Harrison had also been haunted by 2016. Then also the gold medal favorite, Harrison failed to make the U.S. team. A month later she found some consolation in breaking the 28-year-old world record with a 12.20 blast in a Diamond League meet in London. Harrison, like Camacho-Quinn, a former NCAA champion at Kentucky, found redemption in winning the U.S. Trials last month.
But Camacho-Quinn put Harrison and the rest of the field on notice Saturday night with an Olympic record 12.26 clocking in her semifinal.
Afterward she was asked not if she would win the following morning but if she would break Harrison’s world record.
“I just take it step by step,” she said. “Don’t overthink it, don’t panic and everything will happen.”
She followed her own advice for most of the final, blowing away Harrison and the rest until she let the world record creep into her mind in the race’s final stages.
“At this point I was really running for the world record,” Camacho-Quinn said. “I hit the hurdle, but everything happens for a reason. I came through with the gold. My first gold medal.”
This time she made it across the finish line in one piece her 12.37 still well ahead of Harrison (12.52) and Jamaica’s Megan Tapper (12.55).
“I almost fell when I crossed the line, didn’t.”