Jasmine in full bloom!

Having crashed out after a fall at 2016 Rio Games, Puerto Rico’s Camacho-Quinn ecstatic to win 100m hurdles gold, upsetting USA’s world record holder Keni Harrison

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn stormed to an emphatic first Olympic track and field gold medal for Puerto Rico on Monday, powering to victory in the 100m hurdles to exorcise the ghost of her 2016 Rio Games nightmare. 

Five years ago, Camacho-Quinn was helped off the Rio Olympic Stadium track in tears after crashing and falling at the last hurdle in the semi-finals. But on Monday the powerfully built US-born hurdler banished that bitter memory in style, upsetting world record holder Keni Harrison of the United States to win in 12.37sec. Harrison took silver in 12.52sec while Jamaica’s Megan Tapper claimed bronze in 12.55sec. 

Camacho revealed after her win she has spent the past five years haunted by her Rio calamity—and had suffered a breakdown ahead of Sunday’s semi-finals in Tokyo as she feared the same thing happening again. “It stays with me all the time because I’m constantly reminded of it,” she told reporters on Monday. 

“You know yesterday before the semis I had a breakdown because I was like ‘I don’t want the same thing to happen.’ But I knew if I raced how I did all season I’d be okay.” 

Camacho-Quinn had set an Olympic record in the semi-finals, and although her time was slower on Monday, she was always in control after edging into the lead from Harrison at the 30-metre mark.

She clipped the penultimate barrier in an otherwise flawless display but it was not enough to deny her gold. “It really means a lot,” Camacho-Quinn said. “This year I trained really hard. This was what I wanted for this year. I wanted to be a gold-medallist and I manifested that. I spoke it into existence. It worked out for me.”

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