Mon | Oct 14, 2024

‘My time is coming’

Nugent shrugs off disappointing Olympic final

Published:Sunday | August 11, 2024 | 12:14 AM

Ackera Nugent looks on after failing to complete the women’s 100-metre hurdles final inside the Stade de France yesterday.
Ackera Nugent looks on after failing to complete the women’s 100-metre hurdles final inside the Stade de France yesterday.

PARIS, France:

NATIONAL CHAMPION and record holder Ackera Nugent believes her bid to win a major global championship is merely delayed.

Nugent is determined not be denied, despite her troubles in the women’s 100-metre hurdles final at the Paris Olympics yesterday.

Nugent did not finish the final inside the Stade de France, after clipping a couple of hurdles.

America’s Masai Russell, the fastest women in the world this year, claimed the title in 12.33 seconds. France’s Cyrena Samba-Mayela got silver in 12.34 for the country’s first athletics medal of the Games, while former Olympic champion Jasmine Camacho Quinn was third in 12.36.

Nugent’s road to her second major global championship final, her first at the Olympics, was almost derailed because of health complications experienced a week before she was scheduled to compete.

“Last week Thursday, I was lying down in the village on my back. I couldn’t move. I felt like I was paralysed after a training session that I had with the hurdles. And it was like ‘Lord, what is next?’,” Nugent said.

“I was able to move around by Monday. The Lord has brought me here for a reason. And sometimes you have to take the losses and come again.”

Nugent was out of the blocks quickly but, according to her, she could not control that speed going over the first hurdle which caused the race to fall apart.

“That’s what happen. Just being able to get a start like that going into the final after what was going on, I know that I am in the shape that I am supposed to be in. All I have to do is trust in God and hold on.”

Nugent finished fifth at the World Athletics Championships last year in Budapest, her first major senior championships. With the national-record feather in her cap and the gains made this year, she believes her time is coming.

“A lion doesn’t stay down for too long. I wouldn’t say that it is a disappointment. The Lord knows what I am capable of. But, at the same time, He was like my time is not yet. So knowing that my time is not yet, I just have to be patient,” Nugent said.

Daniel Wheeler