400 metres, Women

The best 400 runner in 2005-2006 had been Jamaican-born American Sanya Richards. She was world ranked #1 in 2005-2007, and was a heavy favorite in 2007 to win the World Championships, but did not even make the US team at the Trials, that title going to Britain’s Christine Ohuruogu. It turned out that she had been ill, diagnosed with Behçet’s Syndrome, a variant of an inflammatory arthritis. After receiving treatment she was healthier in 2008 and looked good early in the year, winning the US Olympic Trials easily. In the final in Beijing she started out as expected, going thru 300 metres in 35.8 with a big lead. But that was it. She tied up on the final straight, possibly with a tight hamstring, and was passed by both Ohuruogu and Jamaica’s Shericka Williams. Ohuruogu barely held off Williams for the gold medal and Richards had to hang on to get bronze.

Ohuruogu was a somewhat controversial choice for the British team. She had served a one-year ban from the IAAF for missing three doping tests but the British Olympic Association by-laws mandate a life ban from the Olympic Games for any doping offense. The same by-laws allow an appeal to be made against this ban and the appeal panel decided in her favour in November 2007.