Lolo Jones, 41 and ‘terrified,’ is back on the track and running against time

Hours earlier, she did not know whether her tattered hamstring would allow her to make it into the blocks. Now, she wasn’t sure it would let her make it to the finish line.

So, she was asked later, after she had finished the race, how did she clear 10 hurdles Friday? Was it sheer will? Adrenaline?

“Toradol,” Jones said. “The official sponsor of 41-year-olds.”

A familiar and surprising competitor surfaced Friday at the U.S. trials. Jones made her trials debut 20 years ago in Sacramento, competing alongside Gail Devers, who made her first Olympics in 1988. “That’s how old I am,” Jones said. She made two Summer Olympics and one Winter Olympics, nearly winning gold in the 100 hurdles at the 2008 Olympics before clipping a hurdle while leading late in the race.

Despite never winning an Olympic medal, Jones made herself one of the most notable Olympians of the past two decades. She leveraged her talent, looks, an early understanding of social media and the impressive novelty of making winter and summer Games to achieve fame.

And Jones is still here. Over the past Olympic cycle, Jones said she felt “pushed out” by U.S. bobsled officials because of her age. She wanted to keep competing, so Jones returned to hurdles. At a Gainesville, Fla., track meet in April, Jones ran the 100 hurdles in 13.11, comfortably under the 13.25-second qualifying standard for trials.

Jones’s times suggested the trials would be an exhibition and not much more. But she wanted to come, anyway, to provide hope for younger athletes who may feel crushed if they don’t make the Olympics.

“I hope to show them you can still be in your 40s and be good enough to qualify for the Olympic trials,” Jones said. “And I hope someone after me is going to be good enough to throw down in their 40s. Sport science is getting better. Hell, Tom Brady didn’t retire until he was 45. I hope these kids can see me and be like, ‘You know what? My world is not ending if I don’t make this Olympic team.’ There’s longevity.”

On the way to the trials, though, Jones suffered a setback. She suffered a Grade 2 hamstring tear six weeks ago. “I just got injured,” Jones said. “And it’s an injury that’s not due to old age. It’s an injury I get all the time as a hurdler.”

Jones could not train on a track. The first time she tried to hurdle after her injury came last Saturday, when she jumped over six hurdles and her hamstring cramped, another setback. She waited until Thursday to try again. She made it over one hurdle and cried from the pain.

When she awoke Friday, she was uncertain whether she could compete. She called a pair of old bobsled teammates. “I was like, ‘If you gave me an option right now to get crashed down the scariest bobsled track or run the Olympic trials race, I would pick getting crashed in the bobsled at 90 miles an hour,’ ” Jones said. “That’s how terrified I was to be on that start line. I had no clue if I was going to blow my hamstring out.”

Jones still wanted to run. She wanted to prove she could, and she had the modern medicine of a painkilling injection. When Jones’s name was announced as she settled into her blocks, Hayward Field roared.

“I’m so grateful for everyone who cheered for me,” Jones said. “It’s been so long, I thought people forgot. It means the world for me for people to remember or shout my name. Because I was terrified on that start line. I was crying this morning because I thought I was going to have to pull out of the race. For me to get on that start line and get through all 10 hurdles was a huge victory.”

Jones finished in 14.86 seconds, a chasm between her and second-to-last in her heat. “I don’t want people to think this is what a 40-something-year-old can do,” Jones said. “I was on pace to run 12 seconds” before the injury.

Jones could still race again, if her hamstring allows. Owing to multiple scratches and an expanded qualifying system for the opening round, all 27 hurdlers who entered advanced. Nia Ali, the Tokyo Olympic silver medalist, decided on an energy-conservation strategy with a bizarre aesthetic: She trotted out of the blocks and loped gently over hurdles to finish in 20.38 seconds.

Jones views her career as a series of setbacks faced and overcome. Missing the Olympic team in 2004 helped her make it in 2008; tripping over a hurdle in 2008 inspired her to finish fourth in 2012 through injury; not medaling convinced her to try bobsled and become a unique double Olympian.

“If you have a setback, if you have a loss, if you have something that tries to break you, use that as motivation,” Jones said. “That’s why I’m a hurdler – I like to get over stuff.

“I’m still in this fight. You guys are acting like I don’t got a semifinals. But I got a semifinals. I know 14 seconds wasn’t that amazing, but we in it. When I wake up, if I don’t need my cane, we’re going.”