Miller’s desperate dive in the final steps of the 400 meters on Monday night beat Allyson Felix by a dramatic seven one hundredths of a second, 49.44 to 49.51.
Advertisement
With the finish line of the women’s 400 meters within a single stride, Miller chose to slide through the stripe while Felix remained upright, giving her the seven-hundredths of a second needed to earn her first Olympic medal. “The only thing going through my mind was, I have to get the gold medal”. “I have cuts and bruises, a few burns”. The 22-year-old played within the confines of the rules and won her first Olympic gold medal, and in the process, proved our Little League coaches totally wrong.
“‘I’ve never done it before”, Miller said.
Allyson Felix, for her part, took home the silver – her seventh overall Olympic medal – and in so doing, became the single most decorated woman in US track and field history.
“Now I’m coming home with a gold medal, so it is such an fantastic feeling for me”.
Shericka Jackson of Jamaica took the bronze medal. I heard my mum screaming.
She dove in the last second and managed to take gold.
“I just kept on telling myself to keep on chipping away at the gap, and once I got my position, all I wanted was to hold it”, Coburn, 25, told reporters. “I don’t think I ever quite had a year this tough”. I feel emotionally and physically drained.
Miller, who won the 2013 NCAA indoor title and was second at the national outdoor meet that year, came into the Games with two of the world’s top three 400m times this year.
Felix, who could still add to her medal tally in the 4x100m and 4x400m relays, would not be drawn on whether she could return for a fifth Olympics in Tokyo.
Advertisement
Felix told the Today show that she was “not too used to seeing” a dive like that in a race.
