Miller finished in 49.44 seconds to narrowly hold off world champion Felix, who finished strongly in 49.51 seconds.
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It looked unclear who’d win the gold-until Miller made a dive for the finish line, allowing her to put her chest across the finish line 0.07 seconds before Felix, who remained upright.
“When I was on the ground I didn’t know I’d won”, the gold medalist added. The surprising move earned the 22-year-old Miller a gold medal and stunned American Allyson Felix, denying Felix a fifth career gold medal.
While Miller celebrated, silver-medal victor Felix expressed disappointment at being so close to clinching gold.
Felix becomes the most decorated USA female track athlete, with seven medals, including four golds in London and Beijing.
“I was thinking, “Oh my gosh, I am lying on the ground right now”, she said, speaking to reporters.
She won the race from lane seven continuing the trend of outside lanes providing surprising results.
“This is the moment I have been waiting for”.
And Miller says it was while she was laid out on the track that a shout from her mother alerted her to her Olympic triumph. According to NBC, here’s the rule: “The first athlete whose torso (as distinguished from the head, neck, arms, legs, hands or feet) reaches the vertical plane of the closest edge of the finish line is the victor”. “I don’t think I ever quite had a year this tough”. “It’s always hard after a 400 and I was physically and emotionally drained”.
“It wasn’t my best race”, Felix, now the most decorated woman in American track and field history, said during a Tuesday appearance on the Today show. “I didn’t really have too many thoughts on it”.
On Monday night, the women sprinters raced in the 400 meters.
“It all kind of happened”, she said of the tumble, which some believe was accidental. “I have cuts and bruises, a few burns”.
Felix, 30, had to settle for silver in 49.51, with Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson taking bronze.
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“I gave it everything I had”, she continued.
