As his car curved away from the Eugene, Ore., airport toward Highway 99 on Tuesday, Fred Harvey imagined an announcer calling the 400-meter hurdles final at the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials.
In the Arizona Wildcats track coach’s head, his star pupil, Georganne Moline, battled American record-holder Lashinda Demus down the stretch.
It’s Moline! Demus trails! Moline clears the last hurdle! Moline! She’s going to win! Unbelievable!
Harvey pulled over his car, blinded.
Tears filled his eyes, and rushed down his cheek.
“When you see something this great on the horizon,” he said, “well, then, I’m just a crier.”
It wasn’t the first time Harvey cried over Moline, whose Olympic dream starts with today’s Trials prelim.
The Pac-12 champion was the nation’s leading hurdler entering the NCAA Outdoor Championships’ 400 earlier this month.
The redshirt junior-to-be was expected to breeze through the semifinal heat — and she did, leading through the first seven hurdles.
At the final turn, she leapt, stumbled over the eighth hurdle and fell.
Read more about Moline in Thursday's Arizona Daily Star.
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