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Olympics Blog

UCLA’s Leach stumbles

By Helene Elliott
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EUGENE, Ore. -- Nicole Leach of UCLA, the 2007 NCAA champion in the 400-meter hurdles and runner-up this year, stumbled out of contention when she hit the seventh hurdle of the day’s last preliminary heat. She couldn’t make up the lost time and did not advance.

Leach said the wind came up ‘and I tried to open my stride. I realized my leg was coming up and I hit the hurdle.’

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She said she hadn’t had a mishap like that since high school, and though she can take consolation from being young and likely having another chance in 2012, that wasn’t a lot of comfort Friday.

‘When you’re here and doing well and healthy you’d rather go for it,’ she said. ‘To not make the final over something like this is very disappointing.’

-- Helene Elliott

Olympics Blog
Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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