EUGENE, Ore. — Asing Mu got tangled up in the middle of the truck and began to fall. One hand hit the ground, then the other. As she rolled onto her back, her bright pink shoes began to point toward the sky.
The loss ended one of America's most promising runners' hopes of winning back-to-back Olympic gold medals in the 800 meters and provided a reminder to sports fans just how grueling the U.S. track and field trials can be.
The 22-year-old New Jersey native was the first big-name casualty of Monday's qualifying rounds, falling victim to a tight pack on the backstretch of the first lap — a long-standing U.S. rule that only the top three qualifiers, regardless of background, qualify for the Olympics.
“I heard that and I just thought, 'OK, keep running. It's not you,'” said runner-up Allie Wilson. “Unfortunately, it's part of racing. These things happen.”
Mu got up and finished, more than 22 seconds behind winner Nia Akins, who finished in 1 minute 57.36 seconds. After the race, Mu hurried off the track and through the tunnel, holding back tears. She declined to be interviewed.
She was running on the outside of a tight pack and appeared to be making her way left towards eventual third-place finisher Juliet Whittaker, but stumbled and fell, leaving the three runners behind her floundering and jumping over and around her.
Mu is not the first athlete to experience something like this: One of the most memorable and heartbreaking moments in track and field occurred eight years ago at this same event, when Alicia Montano, who was trying to return to the Olympics, stumbled in the final straight, collapsed to the ground and cried.
“I feel a bit like a mama bear,” said Montano, who was at the track this week doing an internal interview over the PA system, “but the racing is brutal at times. It's two close laps and everyone's desperate to get into position.”
The Olympic Trials was Mu's first competition of the year after she was plagued by injury all season. She looked strong in the first two rounds but was eliminated before the first 200 meters in the final.
Despite her fall, Mu could still compete on the U.S. relay team in Paris after playing a key role in the U.S. winning gold medal in the 4x400m relay in Tokyo three years ago.
Mu, who won NCAA, national, world and Olympic championships before turning 21 and won a bronze medal at last year's world championships, acknowledged afterward that she needed to get away from the pressure, social media and other demands that come with being a rising star in track and field.
In an interview ahead of this week's tournament in Eugene, she said she has rediscovered her love for the sport and is looking forward to the challenge of becoming a back-to-back champion.
Her long, relaxed stride was a factor in her success over this distance, but it may have also cost her the race in which she was the favorite to win.
“I'm heartbroken for Asing,” Wilson said. “Obviously, we all know she's very talented and a great competitor, and she would have represented this country well, but we have three incredible women who will represent this country to the best of their ability.”
Anna Hall's comeback
Mew's 800-meter run was in stark contrast to the one run by heptathlete Anna Hall less than 30 minutes earlier.
Hall won the 800 metres, the seventh and final event of the two-day heptathlon, to claim the title and qualify for the Olympics – three years after stumbling at a hurdle and missing out on a place in Tokyo, and just six months after knee surgery that had cast doubt on his fitness for the Paris Games.
She, too, cried after the race as she went to the stands and embraced the best American athlete in her event, two-time Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
“I'm in shock,” Hall said. “This year has been so hard, and then 2021 comes along and I fall. The journey to get to this point has been much harder than I ever imagined it would be.”
Other Dramas
There was drama elsewhere on a busy night that saw six finals played out.
The women's 5,000m race finished separated by just 0.02 seconds, with Elise St-Pierre narrowly beating Elise Clunie in 14:40.34. Both athletes will compete in the Olympics.
And Vashti Cunningham, who had won 13 consecutive U.S. indoor and outdoor titles before this week, needed to win in the third-place match to make her third Olympic team.
The waiting game
Quincy Wilson, 16, placed sixth in the 400-meter final with a time of 44.94 seconds, his third time under 45 seconds in three Trials attempts.
Now he will wait to see if he gets called up by the U.S. track and field team as a relay runner.
“All I know is I gave it everything I had,” he said. “I'm not too disappointed. I'm 16 years old and I'm running adult times.”
