By Emma Childs
Canadian Olympian Angela Whyte was not happy with her win in the women’s 100-meter hurdles Friday at the Oregon Twilight Meet.
“They aren’t working right now,” she said. She sighed, shook her head and placed her hands in frustration onto her hips.
Whyte won the event in 13.73 seconds, ahead of Oregon State University’s record holder, Devin Collins, who was .32 behind.
The 36-year-old blames a lot of her frustration on leaving the coach she had been training under the past 15 years and having recently just quit her job as an assistant track coach at Washington State University.
“It’s been a struggle, and so it’s starting to show on the track,” she said.
As co-captain of the Canadian Olympic team in Rio de Janeiro, she is no newcomer to the 100-meter hurdles. She is a three-time Olympian. Whyte competed in 2004, 2008 and 2016.Her highest place finish was in 2004 in Athens with a sixth-place finish in a time of 12.81, .92 seconds faster than she ran Friday. She is decorated with two medals from the Pan American Games and three at the Commonwealth Games.
But racing down the straightaway of Hayward Field is always a great experience for Whyte, no matter how well she races. “Even if I run, just absolute … just terrible, this is to me the home of track and field. I’ve been to a lot of stadiums across the world and there’s something about Hayward. It’s just magic.”
Whyte emphasized that even if the field of competition isn’t close for her, she still will race because it is an opportunity.
As Whyte was raving about the great community that track and field at the professional level has, she stopped talking to cheer for her Canadian teammate last year, Johnathan Cabral as he beat American Devon Allen in the 110-meter hurdles.
Collins exemplified this as well when she said that she met Whyte at this meet last year and that she is always nice to her.
She enjoys competing against Whyte. “I feel like it’s like what every track athlete would dream of,” Collins said. “At some point if you’re not going to be an Olympian, I guess the best you can get is to compete next to one.”
Both Whyte and Collins competed in this race against each other last year, and neither was satisfied with her race Friday. Collins had run the 400-meter hurdles earlier in the meet.
While Whyte may not have a lot left in her professional track career, she is excited for athletes like Collins to follow in her footsteps.
Whyte is skeptical about her future even as she prepares to compete at the Canadian nationals. She doesn’t know how long her career has, but she does know what she wants: “I’d like to see how far and long I can go, because I’ve had a pretty long career.”
