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American Harper wins 100m hurdles in dramatic circumstances

19/08/2008

American Dawn Harper won the women's 100m hurdles final in dramatic fashion.

Pre-race favourite Lolo Jones, also from the US, looked to be storming to victory, but clipped the penultimate hurdle and completely lost her stride.

Harper finished extremely strongly claiming gold in a time of 12.54 seconds.

A disconsolate Jones finished second from last and immediately crashed to the ground in floods of tears.

Australia's Sally McLellan took silver and Canada's Priscilla Lopes-Schliep claimed bronze after a blanket photo finish where the medals could have done to any of five athletes.

Britain's Sarah Claxton finished a disappointing eighth in her first Olympic final.

Jones was devastated as she described the moment she clipped the hurdle.

"At the middle part of the race the hurdles came up very fast," the American said.

"I wanted to keep things tight. It was like racing a car at high velocity. When you hit a curve, you either maintain control of it or you crash and burn. Today I crashed and burned.

"Today is hard. Tomorrow will be harder. I just have to get myself back up."