EUGENE, Ore. — Sanya Richards-Ross felt a stab of pain in her hamstring as she hit the curve in the third heat of the women’s 400 meters, and she knew it was over.
“No Rio,” she thought. “No Rio.”
The final race of her medal-winning career ended without Ross even crossing the finish line: She pulled up short and didn’t complete the 400 at the U.S. Olympic trials on Friday, an event she dominated on the national and international stage for the better part of a decade.
That means no spot on the U.S. team at the Rio Games, robbing the 31-year-old of the chance to defend her gold medal from London; she also took bronze in the 2008 Beijing Games, and was part of the gold-winning 4x400 relay in London, Beijing and the 2004 Athens Games.