Sydney, September 27: Gail Devers will go down in history as the best 100 metre hurdler never to win a gold or any other Olympic medal at the discipline, after dramatically crashing out in her semi-final on Wednesday with a left hamstring strain. Her belief that it was destiny that she should never stand on an Olympic podium in the hurdles - in four tries - bears some truth given her ill fortune in the 1992 final.The 33-year-old, who in 1996 became only the second woman in history to claim two consecutive Olympic 100m gold medals, looked set for the 100m/100m hurdles double in 1992 before she stumbled after the final hurdle while well in the lead and finished fifth. "There is no jinx. Is this '92 all over again . No it is not," she said. "I don't think luck is involved it's skills. Mine weren't able to do it for me today," she added. Devers looks set to handle this latest Olympic disappointment as she has done other countless athletics heartbreaks because she has come through much more difficult challenges than simply taking on a set of hurdles.The sparky sprinter came within a whisker of having a foot amputated in 1990 as she battled against the thyroid disorder Graves' Disease. "That was a numbing time for me as I saw all my dreams coming to a brutal end," she said. "I just thank God that somehow the doctors decided not to go through with the operation because I don't know how I would have coped." Devers is blunt about what made the difference between her form leading up to the previous two Olympics and her performances in the finals. "It's not about confidence," Devers said. "It's about getting out there and executing. Not hitting hurdles - given my history that's always my goal. If I don't clear hurdles, I can go from first to last."Given her record, Devers could add injury as well to her list of hurdles to overcome. She spent all of 1998 sidelined with injury and this year had seven weeks enforced lay-off with hamstring and achilles injuries - before returning to post the fastest time of the season in Rome adding yet another chapter to the Devers book of successful comebacks. Last year she was cast in the unlikely role of the bad fairy when she stopped Swede Ludmilla Engqvist - who had just recovered from breast cancer - from completing a miraculous return in the world final. Whether she can hang on till 2004 is very much in question even for this durable athlete, though retirement for the moment is very much on the backburner. "People keep trying to push me out the door," she said. "I will only use the R word once and it's still on the shelf somewhere." Sadly the same is not and will probably never be the case for an Olympic hurdling medal.- (AFP)
