Olympic gold medalist Assing Mu's hopes of winning back-to-back gold medals were dashed on the backstretch of the first lap of the 800-meter final at the USA Track and Field Trials on Monday.
Mu was running in the middle of the pack when she got tangled up with another runner and crashed to the ground, falling flat on her back, her bright pink shoes flapping into the air.
Mu got up and finished, but more than 22 seconds behind winner Nia Akins, who ran a time of 1 minute 57.36 seconds.
The 22-year-old New Jersey native fought back tears as she hurried off the track and through the tunnel after the race, and she did not immediately come out to the media area for an interview.
The Olympic Trials was her first competition of the year after battling injury all season, and although she looked good in the first two rounds, she was eliminated before the first 200 meters in the final.
It's a prime example of the ruthless format of the U.S. trials, where the top three make the Olympic team and résumés and past performances mean nothing. Mu could still make it to Paris as part of the U.S. relay pool; she played a key role in the U.S. gold medal win in the 4×400 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, she said she has rediscovered her love for the sport and is looking forward to the challenge of winning back-to-back titles.
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.
Moo was running on the outside of the tight pack and attempted to veer left towards Juliet Whittaker but stumbled and fell, causing the three runners behind her to stumble over her.
She's not the first time this has happened: One of the most memorable, and heartbreaking, moments in track occurred eight years ago at this same event, when Alicia Montano, who was trying to make an Olympic comeback, stumbled in the final straight, collapsed to the ground and cried.
Anna Hall's Return
Mew's 800m run stood in stark contrast to that of Anna Hall in the heptathlon, which took place less than 30 minutes later.
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 came down to just 0.02 seconds, with Elle St-Pierre narrowly beating Elise Clunie in 14:40.34. Both women 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.”
