The streak is over, but Lauryn Williams already is planning to get a new one started.
U.S. women had won five straight Olympic gold medals in the 100 meters before Yuliya Nesterenko of Belarus became champion Saturday night at a nearly sold-out Olympic Stadium.
Williams, who jumped from the top of the NCAA podium in the 100 to the second step of the Olympic awards stand in two months, can’t wait for 2008.
“I have heard the gold is only gold-plated, and the silver is all silver, so maybe mine is worth a little more,” Williams said. “But I still would rather have the gold. I’m getting my vengeance ready.”
Nesterenko won with a time of 10.93 seconds in a race where all three medalists would have been surprises at the start of this season. Williams was second in a personal-best 10.96, and Jamaica’s Veronica Campbell took third in 10.97.
None had even competed in the 100 meters at last year’s world championships.
“The biggest surprise for me was just making it here,” Williams said.
Williams, 20, who recently gave up her final year of eligibility at the University of Miami, is the first college-age runner to win a 100 medal for the U.S. since track became a professional sport 25 years ago.
“This is a super-duper, extra added bonus to what I thought I would be accomplishing this year,” the voluble Williams said. “I’m excited about my future. The young girls are taking over.”
Williams’ future looked promising since she won the world junior title in 2002 and the Pan American Games last year in 11.12, her personal best until this season.
Nesterenko seems a woman with no past. She is not listed in the lengthy athletes’ index of the 2004 international track and field annual, and her best time last year was only 11.45. Earlier this season, she ran what had been a personal-best 11.02
“Never heard anything about her,” Williams said.
To jump from anonymity to Olympic champion can only stir doubt about how she did it, especially in the sport’s current climate of suspicion about doping. Nesterenko’s performance was especially startling, with times of 10.94, 10.99 and a national-record 10.92 in the rounds leading to the final.
After all, doping issues were a big reason the reasons the 100 was open to surprises. Last year’s world champion, Kelli White of the U.S., lost that title for a doping offense and since has been banned for two years.
The woman who inherited the title, Torri Edwards of the U.S., was banned from the Olympics for doping. And the runner-up at the 2000 Olympics, Katerina Thanou of Greece, withdrew from the 2004 Games amid questions raised by her having missed three doping controls.
Nesterenko, 25, attributed her improvement to:
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– Changed training methods, which she would not specify, other than to say there was a lot of weightlifting.
– A new masseur.
– Finally being able to get an apartment of her own with husband Dmitry after previously living with her parents.
“I have been training the whole year thinking about the Olympic Games, and it helped,” Nesterenko said.
Williams said Friday she was satisfied just to get to Saturday’s semifinals. It would have been a shame if Williams had not gone beyond the first two rounds because her father, David, had not been able to see them.
“Just to see him out there jumping up and down [Saturday night] was unbelievable,” she said.
David Williams, 51,who has leukemia that is in remission, did not think he would be able to get to the Olympics because he needs to undergo kidney dialysis three times a week.
“Dad, I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Williams told him about coming to Greece after she made the team with a third in the 100 at the Olympic trials.
The problem wasn’t finding a place to get dialysis done in Athens but the cost of doing it, for the illness has made him unable to hold a job.
David Williams’ first attempt to raise money with a booth at a classic car show near his home outside Pittsburgh raised only $54. But a story about his situation in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette prompted another man with leukemia to send a check for the $10,000 Williams needed to see his daughter run.
Dialysis sessions Friday at an Athens hospital took so long he was not able to get to the Olympic Stadium. That left the U.S. sprinter worried until hearing from one of her sisters that their dad was OK. And that left Williams with nothing to think about but a race in which there was little pressure on her.
“Going into the blocks, I just thought run and run, run for your life,” she said.
Williams got off to a fast start and led most of the race. She was most concerned about Campbell one lane inside her and never saw Nesterenko coming on the outside. It wouldn’t have made any difference, for the Belarussian flew past Williams in the final 5 meters.
“I came as a big surprise for the outside world, but I was well prepared,” Nesterenko said. “I had consistent results all year, and here was the perfect moment to break the 11-second barrier.”