By Keeler McJunkin
Defending Olympic decathlon champion Ashton Eaton and four-time Olympic gold medalist Allyson Felix updated the status of their respective injuries during a news conference at the Eugene Hilton Wednesday afternoon previewing the 2016 U.S. Olympic trials that begin Friday at Hayward Field.
Eaton, an Oregon alum, said he injured his quad at a meet in late May, while Felix has been nursing an ankle injury suffered in April.
The injuries caused both to change their training routines leading up to the Olympic trials.
Eaton has been nursing a quad injury suffered during the long jump at Ostrava Golden Spike in the Czech Republic. He said the injury wasn’t serious, but added he could have handled the whole situation better.
“It was simply bad judgment on my part,” Eaton said. “I’d never had something like that. I should have got it scanned right away, and then done all the appropriate things like stay off of it. I just didn’t do it because I’d never had it before.”
Eaton said his training was reduced to about a quarter of what he normally does for a few weeks, but never thought it was something that would put his Olympic trials availability in jeopardy.
The decathlon begins at 9:45 a.m. Saturday with the 100 meters and finishes at 5:33 p.m. Sunday with the 1,500 meters.
Felix, who is looking to make the Olympic team in both the 200-meter and 400-meter events, withdrew from an event in Doha after the injury. The injury also caused her to withdraw from the Prefontaine Classic in May.
“It’s been a really difficult year,” Felix said. “Things have definitely had to be altered a bit. I had significant tears in multiple ligaments in my ankle. It’s been a very rocky road even just getting back to the track.”
Felix has been forced to go through therapy, rehab, and work in the pool and on the bike before she could return to training, ultimately missing almost a month of working out on the track. Felix says that throughout her rehab she never thought about missing the trials and feels optimistic about her chances this week.
“I’m a fighter,” she said. “It was going take a whole lot not to get me here. My goals are the same. I want to make the team in both events.”
Felix’s Olympic trials will get underway Friday with the first round of the women’s 400.
Other notes from the news conference:
- Four-time Olympic medalist Justin Gatlin talked about the pressure of competing at an event like the Olympic trials: “When you think about Olympic trials, it’s all about dreams, making dreams happen. It’s not just a regular race around the world somewhere. These people are running with dreams in their eyes.”
- Gatlin, 34, is a veteran in the sprints and is coming off one of the best years of his career in 2015. “When you get older it’s hard to roll out of bed in the morning,” he said. You forget you have joints, but it’s just being more diligent. I train with a lot of young athletes, all of them probably 26 and younger. They keep me live, keep me focused.”
- The Eugene Emeralds, a short-season Class A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs, will have an Ashton Eaton bobblehead night on July 2. The first 1,000 fans in attendance will receive the bobblehead. The Emeralds will also be wearing special Hayward Field jerseys this weekend in honor of the Olympic trials.
