Hurdler Camacho-Quinn cherishes Olympic gold for Puerto Rico

EUGENE, Oregon (AP):

This was what winning an Olympic gold medal for Puerto Rico looked like for hurdler Jasmine Camacho-Quinn: Billboards around San Juan featuring only her first name. A festive, flag-waving parade just for her. Meeting some of the country’s biggest dignitaries.

Now, along with all of that, comes pressure – pressure to replicate that 100-metre hurdles gold medal at world championships and beyond.

Despite being the best hurdler all last season, she viewed herself as an underdog in Tokyo, where she captured her nation’s first Olympic track and field gold. These days, that sort of role doesn’t apply. That medal placed a lot of extra weight on her shoulders, which she’s learning to deal with as she begins the first round of the hurdles at worlds on Saturday in Eugene, Oregon.

“The pressure that’s on you, it can stress you out a little bit,” said Camacho-Quinn, who is from South Carolina and chose to represent Puerto Rico as an homage to her mom’s heritage. “You’re trying to be perfect at everything. You’re trying to have the same year, or something similar as you did the year before.

“I’m actually handling it a lot better now, so that’s a good thing. I’m not super-nervous going into world championships.”

To think, she was initially mad after crossing the line that day in Tokyo. Mad that she clipped the ninth hurdle. Mad that she didn’t set a world record.

GOLD MEDAL

“And then I just had to remind myself that I just won an Olympic gold medal,” Camacho-Quinn said with a laugh. “I snapped out of it.”

It was quite a contrast to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, where she hit the eighth hurdle in her semifinal heat, stumbled over the ninth and crashed into the 10th. She crossed the finish line, dropped to her knees on the track and buried her head in her hands. The tears flowed.

Out of it, a promise – this wouldn’t happen again. She studied that race and what went wrong. Her trail leg was lagging a little bit. She cleaned up her form. She trained even harder.

In Tokyo, she dominated the race and celebrated for a country where her mom is from. Camacho-Quinn was raised in South Carolina, but always had Puerto Rican influences around the house thanks to mom – music, food, celebrations.

And while some may raise eyebrows at her representing the red, white and blue of Puerto Rico while growing up in the US – hardly unheard-of, and completely reasonable given America’s deep stable of talent in the hurdles – she knows how much this medal meant to a nation of three million people.

She’s reached celebrity status in the Caribbean island.

“The amount of love I received, that was amazing,” the 25-year-old said. “I just feel like that I just brought joy to everybody.”

She was treated like royalty upon a return to Puerto Rico soon after the Olympics. There were billboards with just “Jasmine” in white letters set against a red backdrop. There was a parade that passed through the streets and proud Puerto Rican fans waving flags.

“It’s unfathomable the impact she’s made on the Puerto Rican community in the US and of course in Puerto Rico,” her agent, Paul Doyle, said.