Former ACU all-America hurdler Delloreen Ennis-London likely saw her Olympic career end with a disappointing fifth-place finish Tuesday night in the 100-meter final at the National Stadium.
The 33-year-old Ennis-London finished in a time of 12.65, just .01 of a second off the medal stand as Dawn Harper of the United States won the gold medal in 12.54, while Sally McClellan of Australia finished in 12.64 seconds. Priscilla Lopes-Schliep of Canada was third in 12.64, while Damu Cherry of the United States and Ennis-London were fourth and fifth, respectively, in 12.65 seconds.
American LoLo Jones, who won the U.S. Olympic Trials and then coasted through the first two rounds of qualifying, clipped a hurdle and faded to a surprising seventh-place finish in a time of 12.72 seconds.
Ennis-London's time of 12.65 would have been good enough to at least win the silver medal in the 2000 Olympic Games where she finished fourth, and would have been good for a fourth-place finish in the 2004 Olympic Games. Ennis-London, however, did not make the final in the race in 2004, instead finishing fifth in her semifinal heat.
Ennis-London was trying to become the first Jamaican female athlete to win an Olympic medal in the 100-meter hurdles, but she narrowly finished off the medal stand in her second straight Olympic final. In 2000 she finished fourth (the highest-ever finish in the event for a Jamaican) with a time of 12.80 seconds, just .04 of a second behind Melissa Morrison's bronze-medal time of 12.76 seconds.
By qualifying for the Olympics, Ennis-London joined former Wildcat national champion Tim Bright as the only three-time Olympians in school history. Bright competed in the decathlon and pole vault in the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Olympic Games. Ennis-London was also trying to become the first former ACU female student-athlete to win an Olympic medal. Prior to Ennis-London's fourth-place finish in 2000, the closest one had come to a medal was Tracey Barnes in 1996 when she ran on Jamaica's fourth-place 4x400 relay team in Atlanta.
The last time a Wildcat won an Olympic medal was in 1984 when Albert Lawrence and Greg Meghoo each won a silver medal on Jamaica's 4x100 relay team at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
The next former Wildcat to compete in the Olympics will be Richard Phillips, who is in the 110-meter hurdle semifinals Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. Phillips, who earned NCAA Division II all-America honors at ACU in 2002 before transferring to George Mason University, finished fifth in his quarterfinal heat in 13.48 seconds to advance to Wednesday evening's semifinals. The race will be run at 8:30 a.m. Abilene time.
The final two Wildcat athletes to run in the Olympics will be Wanda Hutson of Trinidad & Tobago in the women's 4x100 relay and Marvin Essor of Jamaica in the men's 4x400 relay.
Hutson, who red-shirted at ACU in 2008, and her Trinidadian teammates will run in the semifinal heat Thursday at 10:20 p.m. (9:20 a.m. Abilene time), while Essor, the 2005 NCAA Division II national champion both indoors and outdoors at 400 meters, and his teammates will run their semifinal heat Friday at 10:10 p.m. (9:10 a.m. Abilene time).
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