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Photo Finish: Tampa's Cherry 4th In 100-Meter Hurdles

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By BILL WARD

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 19, 2008

Updated: 08/19/2008 01:09 pm

Tampa's Damu Cherry came as close as you can to winning an Olympic medal Tuesday night in the final of the women's 100-meter hurdles at the Beijing Games.

In the closest Olympic women's hurdles final ever - two one-hundredths of a second separated second through sixth place - Cherry wound up fourth in 12.65 seconds. She missed the bronze and silver medal by a hundredth of a second.

The official results were not posted until several minutes after the race while officials sorted out the order with a finish-line photo.

"It's really hard to get fourth. I thought I had it. I thought I had it. I really did, so congrats to them," Cherry said. "The thing you have to do is you've got to keep running and never quit. You never know where you are in the race."

Dawn Harper, third at last month's U.S. Olympic track and field trials, was the surprise winner in a season-best time of 12.54. That one was clear. But after that, who finished where became difficult to determine as race officials were forced to extend the timing to thousandths of a second to determine place order.

"I kind of thought I was up there, but it was by a [hundredth] of a second," Cherry said. "It's hard to deal with. It's hard, but I'm healthy, and I thank God for that."

Prerace favorite Lolo Jones, the U.S. trials winner, ran 12.72 for seventh place. By the halfway point, Jones had built nearly a meter lead. But she hit the ninth hurdle with her lead leg and barely made it over the 10th hurdle. The tightly packed field swallowed Jones, and she dropped from first to seventh in a few strides

Australian national record-holder, Sally McLellan, who didn't even make the final of last year's world championships, led out of the blocks and wound up with the silver medal at 12.64. Registering the same official time for the bronze was Canada's Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, who won her country's first track medal since 1996. Cherry was next at 12.65.

But the photo finish didn't stop with Cherry in fourth. Officials also needed the picture from the high-speed camera to decide fifth and sixth place. Experienced Jamaicans Delloreen Ennis-London and Bridgitte Foster-Hylton took those spots at 12.65 and 12.66, respectively.

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