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Injury forces Miller out of 100 Decision to withdraw paves way for Jones
SYDNEY, Australia -- Sprinter Inger Miller of the United States has withdrawn from the Olympic 100 meters, suffering from a severely strained left hamstring that she injured during training in Los Angeles on Sept. 7, two days before departing for Sydney. Miller also told Sports Illustrated on Tuesday night here that she might have to pull out of the 200 meters and the 4x100-meter relay. Miller, who won the 1999 world championship in the 200, was the one sprinter with a genuine chance of challenging Marion Jones in the 100 and, in particular, the 200. She informed U.S. coaches of the decision late Tuesday afternoon.
Miller will be replaced in 100 by another HSI runner, Torri Edwards. "Maybe this will turn out to be a blessing for Torri," said Miller. "Maybe it will turn out to a blessing for Marion." Miller, who finished second to Jones in both the 100 and 200 at the U.S. Olympic trials, was running a series of 60-meter sprints 12 days ago at the UCLA track when she felt the hamstring grab. The injury was serious enough that Miller fell hard to the track. She was placed immediately in a difficult race against time. The first phone call she made on that afternoon was to her boyfriend, HSI hurdler Larry Wade. At the time, Wade was sitting in a dentist's chair getting his teeth cleaned. His dentist is Dr. Lennox Miller, Inger's father and a two-time Olympic medalist for Jamaica in the 100 meters. After Wade told Lennox Miller about Inger's injury, Lennox went immediately to a calendar and began counting days. "Fifteen days to the 100," he told Wade. "She'll be all right." But she isn't. Miller left Los Angeles on Sept. 9, arriving in Sydney on Monday, Sept. 11. She took therapy every day but couldn't train. This past Monday morning, she put on spikes and tried to sprint hard for the first time since the injury, but the pain was too severe. She aborted the training session after just 30 minutes and left the track with HSI physical therapist Andy Miller. "It was an incredibly difficult decision," Miller said. "If I decided to run the 100, that might have been risking the 200 and the relay as well." She called her parents Monday night and told them she was withdrawing from the 100. That decision gives Miller five additional days to rest the injury before the start of the 200-meter heats on Sept. 27. However, Miller is not certain that the leg will be sufficiently healed by then, or that she will be fit enough to run. "I came here to win gold," Miller said. "Now I have to ask myself a lot of questions. Do I want to run when I'm not at my best? I haven't trained hard for two weeks, so I'm not at my best right now. Do I want to risk tearing the leg completely and then leaving here with nothing, or should I just pull out of the 200 and the relay and then leave here with nothing, but with a chance to get better? I know I don't want to jeopardize the relay's chances." Miller won a relay gold in Atlanta and became, with her father, the first father-daughter medal combination in history. The other members of the relay team are Jones, Gail Devers and Chryste Gaines. If Miller can't run, the runners eligible to replace her on the relay include Edwards, Nanceen Perry, Carlette Guidry and Passion Richardson. Since only three women in history have run the 100 and 200 meters faster than the 28-year-old Miller, her absence weakens the relay, but the U.S. remains the favorite. Miller's HSI brethren should have little difficulty empathizing with her misfortune. Boldon missed last summer's World Championships -- where he was defending champion in the 200 -- also with a strained hamstring. Miller's coach, John Smith, was a gold-medal possibility in the 400 meters at the 1972 Olympic Games, but badly injured his hamstring while running a 200-meter race in Munich's Olympic Stadium three weeks before the Games. "I understand what Inger is feeling," Smith said just before Miller decided to pull out. "There's no feeling like what she's going through." Sports Illustrated senior writer Tim Layden is in Sydney covering the track and field competition for the magazine and CNNSI.com. Check back daily to read Layden's behind-the-scenes reports from Down Under.
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