Michelle Jenneke has that dawg in her. The 31-year-old hurdler represented Australia at the Olympics in Paris and ran more than one race without a fully-intact hamstring.
She pushed through the injury to prove to her country that she is more grit than meets the eye.
Jenneke, who is perhaps most famous for her pre-race dance routine, ran in the third heat of the women’s 100-meter hurdles on Wednesday. It was a total disaster.
Her hamstring popped sometime between the second and third hurdles. Jenneke took a nasty tumble.
She knocked over a hurdle in the process. The rest of the field kept going without issue.
Although the race went as poorly as possible, she refused to give up. Jenneke rallied and pushed through the line to finish in dead last. That was a huge deal.
Technically speaking, Jenneke’s medal hopes were still alive. If she had dropped out of the race, she would not have been able to run in the repechage round on Thursday.
By completing the heat on Wednesday, Jenneke was allowed to run again for a chance at the semifinals.
However, any hope of advancing was completely nonexistent after a visit to Team Australia’s doctors. She completely ruptured her hamstring. It wasn’t just a tear. It was a total blowout.
For Jenneke to finish the opening round heat after the injury was impressive. Even more so, she somehow rallied to run in a second race on Thursday.
I ran today with one less hamstring than usual and obviously that was pretty difficult […]
I knew that making that semi-final and running under 13 seconds missing one of your hamstrings is probably pretty impossible but I wanted to prove to myself and the rest of Australia that I have got grit in me and I’m not going to give up easily.
— Michelle Jenneke
Michelle Jenneke ran a time of 13.86 seconds without one of her hamstrings. It was completely ruptured and she still managed to run under 14 seconds. That’s pretty insane.
A gold medal is always the goal. The podium is a fantastic accomplishment.
To complete two races in the Olympics on one hamstring might be even more impressive!
Jenneke wanted to prove her grit to Australia. She most certainly did.