She stated in her interview that her toe hit it.
Ever had your knee hit a steeple barrier traveling at that speed? I have.
1. it doesn't throw you off balance, it stops that leg
2. it doesn't allow that leg to continue moving forward
3. it leaves a nice mark on your knee, don't see any marks on her knee in the post race pictures.
She is a great athlete and she went for it. I think she has tons of gusts.
Worst take of the Trials so far. That is a ridiculous assertion. You're telling me if she hadn't fallen she wouldn't have made the team?
e h wrote:
So close.. tragic
Tragic seems strong, but I did feel really bad for her. Looks like she landed just a little off balance. Thought she had a chance still.
zikes wrote:
She wasn't close at all. She was in over her head going with Coburn and Frereichs. She was out of control on every hurdle, a fall was imminent. She ran a dumb race and paid the price.
The race was not with those two, the race was for third.
WC's meet wrote:
pavement88 wrote:
She will be 31...hopefully she keeps the fire burning until 2024.
There is another meet called the World Championships. Most athletes say it's a bigger deal than the Olympics.
Most athletes? Ha! While it might be a better meet in some ways, look at the viewership for Olympic track v WC's and the media coverage and there is no way it is a bigger deal.
Here is an interview with her.
Curiosity wrote:
She does state in here interview that her toe clipped the barrier.
But watching this frame by frame, and being a steepler myself, the way she fell, she didn't hit the barrier at all. Somehow she lost her balance when her lead leg hit the ground and that is what caused her to fall. Her upper body was turned and that might have contributed to it.
If either of her toes hit the barrier (even just a slight clip of it) you would see movement in her leg when it does and you would see the momentum of that leg be disrupted. There is none of that in either leg.
I feel horrible for her, because she was running great and putting it out there to make her dream come true of being an Olympian. Whether she would have held on to 3rd or not, she was putting herself into position to get on the team.
Former hurdler here.
I too watched the video frame by frame. Not conclusive either way, but I do believe her toe hit the barrier. However I don’t think it caused the fall. She was tripping all over herself on the way down and her toe just barely hit the barrier as a result. A couple of observations:
1. Starting from the 6 minute mark, she went over three successive hurdles with her left leg leading and her right leg as the trailing leg. If she is right handed, it would make sense that that would be her more natural hurdling sequence. At least it was that way for me. You train yourself to hurdle with the other leg leading, and can become proficient that way too, but the motion is less natural. On the fourth hurdle, she went over with her right leg leading and her trailing. That is when she went down. (Coincidentally on the water jumps she seems more comfortable taking off with her left leg, planting her right foot over the barrier, and then launching herself over the water with her right leg. That too would seem to be more natural for a right hander)
2. She took off way too close to the barrier on the one that caused her fall. She had to go almost straight up and had a lot of vertical clearance on the barrier but lost forward momentum in the process. As she went down, it seemed like her right (lead leg) began to plant and push forward to regain momentum but because she had gone up higher than normal and her planting motion was a split second too early causing a loss of balance mid-air. Her loss of forward momentum also meant that her toe did not have time to pass the barrier and instead came down on it (however slightly). If her toe had not hit the barrier she might have been able to regain her balance, but it did and she didn’t.
Too bad for her. I’ve been a fan since her days at MSU. hopefully she’ll come back stronger.
couldn't continue waiting at least 5 minutes wrote:
Agreed.
Here's a thought for everyone commenting here:
If you are not (or were not) a steepler you have no idea and should not be commenting on what she should or should not have done. Nor should you be commenting on if she would or would not have made it.
I sort of get this, but then that precludes anyone from making any comment on a topic they have never done? So can I not comment on laws because I have never been a legislator?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW6FMEM7sUk&ab_channel=FloTrackRastus wrote:
Did she comment on what happened?
petemths70 wrote:
You cannot be and could never have been a quality runner to say she wasn't close at all!! With 2 laps to go she looked in complete control. She would have hung right with Coburn, most likely would have ended up second. Don't post ridiculous statements if you are clueless to running yourself!
If she had the ability to get second without the fall like you said.. then she would have had the ability to get 3rd with the fall.
Congrats, that might be the dumbest thing that i have ever heard! Have you ever raced before, fast?! Have you ever run a steeplechase? Marathon? She has 2 laps left and although well within herself you are still redlining at that point. You hit the barrier, have a rush of adrenaline, nerves, exhaustion, really not even know what happened because it happens so quickly and you think if this happens and i said she could have possibly won or got second she still should have been able to get 3rd? Interesting. When Bekele fell at the beginning of the Dubai marathon and got trampled should he still have been able to win? Come on with the "non runners" comments. These are getting absurd, but keep pulling me in unfortunately. And my god its so clear to see her knee hit the barrier.
popSquadMan wrote:
petemths70 wrote:
You cannot be and could never have been a quality runner to say she wasn't close at all!! With 2 laps to go she looked in complete control. She would have hung right with Coburn, most likely would have ended up second. Don't post ridiculous statements if you are clueless to running yourself!
If she had the ability to get second without the fall like you said.. then she would have had the ability to get 3rd with the fall.
Exactly. It wasn't a bad fall. If she was capable of running 9:08 with Coburn like all of you are claiming, then she should have been able to easily run 9:16 for 3rd after a fall that only moved her from 3rd to 4th.
The TRUTH is that she was REDLINING. She was pedal to the metal with 4 laps to go. It never ends well, just look Barrazza in the NCAA final.
Another non runner comment. I'm out!
bbg95 wrote:
Flagpole wrote:
Did you watch the race? She didn't hit the barrier.
Did you watch it? She clearly clipped the top of the barrier with her left (trailing) knee.
Yes I did watch it. I watched the reply in slow motion too. She did NOT hit the barrier.
Rastus wrote:
bbg95 wrote:
Did you watch it? She clearly clipped the top of the barrier with her left (trailing) knee.
I would hold on there. I think she didn't hit it, she landed off balance and went down. Look at around the 8:40 mark of the replay when they show the fall in slow motion and I don't see where any part of her touched the barrier. You can freeze it click by click and it looks like she cleared it. She got her trail leg down. Plus I think if she did hit it she would've gone down much harder and probably come up limping.
There are a couple of other angles later on after the race but they look inconclusive at best.
In any case I wasn't gutted. Had a good night's sleep and nice breakfast. There are worse tragedies in the world like those people in Florida.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_dPxQdnmCU
Yeah, she didn't hit the barrier...as I said.
prosper in the way wrote:
Rastus wrote:
I would hold on there. I think she didn't hit it, she landed off balance and went down. Look at around the 8:40 mark of the replay when they show the fall in slow motion and I don't see where any part of her touched the barrier. You can freeze it click by click and it looks like she cleared it. She got her trail leg down. Plus I think if she did hit it she would've gone down much harder and probably come up limping.
There are a couple of other angles later on after the race but they look inconclusive at best.
In any case I wasn't gutted. Had a good night's sleep and nice breakfast. There are worse tragedies in the world like those people in Florida.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_dPxQdnmCUCan we stop arguing about if she hit the barrier, and whether it was her toe or knee? She very clearly states in her interview her toe hit as she was going over.
She can SAY or BELIEVE anything she wants. Video evidence is crystal clear. She did NOT hit the barrier.
zikes wrote:
Flagpole wrote:
Nope. Not dumb. There were two laps left. She was not guaranteed to fall. She could have held back and guaranteed to get kicked down by a better sprinter. She did what she had to do to give herself a chance. Just didn't work out. She wasn't trying to beat them. She was trying to make the team. Also, they weren't on their PR pace. You're wrong here.
They weren't on their PR pace, they were FASTER THAN THEIR PR PACE. Falland ran two 70 second laps, which is SUB 9 PACE. It was suicide. plan and simple.
NOPE! Cobourn was NOT on and did NOT run a PR. Sorry. You apparently know nothing about running. She gave herself the best shot she could to make the team. Ridiculous of you to call what she did dumb or suicide. Pre and Kennedy went for it at the Olympics because they were chasing a medal, but they failed. Were they DUMB too? The top two spots in this race were pretty much guaranteed. Would have been foolish of her (who doesn't have the sprinter speed of some of the others in the field) to have held back.
Curiosity wrote:
She does state in here interview that her toe clipped the barrier.
But watching this frame by frame, and being a steepler myself, the way she fell, she didn't hit the barrier at all. Somehow she lost her balance when her lead leg hit the ground and that is what caused her to fall. Her upper body was turned and that might have contributed to it.
If either of her toes hit the barrier (even just a slight clip of it) you would see movement in her leg when it does and you would see the momentum of that leg be disrupted. There is none of that in either leg.
I feel horrible for her, because she was running great and putting it out there to make her dream come true of being an Olympian. Whether she would have held on to 3rd or not, she was putting herself into position to get on the team.
She very clearly did NOT hit the barrier. She was tired, she may have been anticipating hitting the barrier when she took off, so she imagined she did, but she clearly DID NOT hit that barrier. Poor and off-balance landing caused her to fall.
prosper in the way wrote:
Curiosity wrote:
She does state in here interview that her toe clipped the barrier.
But watching this frame by frame, and being a steepler myself, the way she fell, she didn't hit the barrier at all. Somehow she lost her balance when her lead leg hit the ground and that is what caused her to fall. Her upper body was turned and that might have contributed to it.
If either of her toes hit the barrier (even just a slight clip of it) you would see movement in her leg when it does and you would see the momentum of that leg be disrupted. There is none of that in either leg.
I feel horrible for her, because she was running great and putting it out there to make her dream come true of being an Olympian. Whether she would have held on to 3rd or not, she was putting herself into position to get on the team.
So basically you're saying she's lying in her interview. That's fine if you think that, but come out an say it.
No, she's not necessarily lying. She imagined something that did not happen. Baseball players think all the time that they didn't watch strike three go by when video evidence shows they did. Same here. We have video evidence. She may have felt unsure of her jump and thought she might hit the barrier, and so she imagined that she did. The brain is powerful. She can think what she wants, but the proof is there on video. She did NOT hit that barrier.
Curiosity wrote:
You are not wrong, i do think that she lied in her interview, and no one will ever know why.
If you ask why would someone lie about that? Because they are embarrassed that they fell on their own without hitting the barrier. Look how long Suzy FH lied about the famous fall she had in the last 100 meters.
Look at the video slowed it down to .25 speed, not one part of her body hits that barrier.
She almost for sure didn't lie. You have to know it's not true for it to be a lie. She was in the midst of a race, she could easily have imagined she hit the barrier simply because she felt she didn't have a good jump over it. I believe she thought when she said that that she hit the barrier. Video shows she didn't.