February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
O’Rourke made an overdue return to somewhere near her best form to take a medal in a season’s best in the 60m hurdles of 7.97 seconds, while Cullen, a former student at Providence College, Rhode Island, battled home tenaciously in the finishing straight of the 3,000 meters in 8:48.47.
However, there was no such positive news for the reigning 400-meter champion, David Gillick, who crashed out of his semi-final. Bumped by a Romanian athlete on the penultimate bend, Gillick lost his footing and tumbled to the ground when a third-place finish would have earned him a place in the final. Not surprisingly in an event where there is often contact, he wasn’t reinstated on appeal as a jury decided there had been no infringement.
After some disappointing days in the aftermath of her World indoor gold medal and European outdoor silver, there was some redemption for O’Rourke this time. “I’d like to think I kept the faith but it took until this race for it to be totally restored,” she said. “This really does feel like a comeback, and that’s nice.”
Cullen had to recover from a stumble five laps from the finish, but she regained her composure to leave several strong athletes in her wake. “My coach Ray Treacy at Providence has been great. He kept telling me to believe, because I did have a hard time believing I could win. He sent me an e-mail before the race saying just that, “Believe.”