Posted on 21 April 2005 - 23:42
World champion hurdler Perdita Felicien thought it would take years to get over her heartbreaking crash at the Athens Olympics.
Evidently, she didn’t give herself enough credit.
After just one outdoor race, Felicien appears to be well on her way back. She won the 100-meter hurdles at the Mount SAC Relays in 12.73 seconds last Sunday in California, the fastest time in the world this year, and will seek her third straight title in that event at the Drake Relays next week in Des Moines.
“That was a boost for my confidence,” Felicien said on Thursday.
"Do I have complete confidence? No. I haven’t faced the best yet.
It won’t come until I get some races under my belt, get those times down.
“I don’t think it’s going to happen in one race. It’s going to take some time.”
The Canadian sprinter’s confidence was shaken badly when she clipped the first hurdle in the Olympic finals last August and sprawled onto the track, taking Russia’s Irina Shevchenko down with her.
Felicien, 24, had been the favorite for the gold medal after winning the world indoor championship earlier in the year and the world outdoor title in 2003. Instead, all she could do was watch in tears as Joanna Hayes of the United States won a race that had appeared to be Felicien’s for the taking.
“There were a few months that I mourned,” said Felicien, who injured her right heel and couldn’t run late last year. "It was extremely hard for me to see past it and to see the future. I kept wondering, ‘How am I going to get through this?’ “Then I realized I had no choice. I had to get over it. I want to be the best in the world. I want to run extremely fast. If I want to do this for the next 10 years, then I’m going to have to get it behind me.”
Felicien ran some indoor races this year with little training.
She finished fourth in the 60 hurdles at the Tyson Invitational in Arkansas and lost in a photo finish at a meet in France.
“I knew going in I would get it handed to me,” she said. “But I knew I had to run those races.”
Then Felicien went to California for her outdoor debut at Mount SAC. Staring down the track at 10 hurdles for the first time, she was nervous and had no idea what to expect.
“I always give myself a time. I say I’m going to run this or I’m going to run that,” she said. “For the first time in my career, I didn’t give myself a time. Whatever the clock reads, that’s what it was going to read. When I saw the time, I was a little bit surprised.”
There’s something else that has taken her aback: The outpouring of support from her home country after her Athens tumble. It started the next day.
“It’s been overwhelming,” she said. "I remember being at the village and coming out of my room and there were stacks of papers, faxes and e-mails, just letters of thanks from (British Columbia) to Nova Scotia, from throughout the entire country.
“I didn’t know if I would be seen as a failure or how they would receive me, but it’s been great. Even now I’m getting makeshift medals and letters. I think it’s a testimony to how we as Canadians support our own.” Felicien has no worries over how she’ll be received at Drake.
With her warm smile and gregarious personality, she has become one of the meet’s most popular figures. The former University of Illinois runner has won the invitational 100 hurdles for the last two years and has won or shared the outstanding performer award in the women’s division three times.
“I’m definitely going in there with some ground to defend,” Felicien said. “Whenever I go to Drake, I just love it. I love the atmosphere, I love the fans. That’s why I keep coming back year after year, because of that crowd.”