Trials to haunt also-rans

EUGENE, Ore. -- A leg cramp at the worst possible time. Or the doubly unspeakable bad luck of both calves cramping at once.

Going out fast in the early rounds and having nothing left at the end.

An incomprehensible, unthinkable miscalculation.

After two days of the U.S. Olympic track and field trials, the margin between making the team and watching the Beijing Games from the couch has been established as agonizingly tiny -- yet big enough to haunt the non-qualifiers for the next four years.

In the biggest upset, Allyson Felix of Los Angeles, touted as a potential champion in the sprints and relays, finished fifth in the 100-meter dash final Saturday, two places past the cutoff for a Beijing berth.

With a time of 10.96 seconds she was merely .06 of a second behind third-place finisher Lauryn Williams.

Not that it’s likely to be much consolation, but 100-meter world champion Veronica Campbell-Brown of Jamaica finished fourth in her country’s Olympic trials Saturday and may not get a Beijing berth in that event.

The difference for Campbell-Brown between a sure spot and limbo?

A hundredth of a second.

Events here have played out like that too. Narrow wins and misses are occurring regularly and will surely happen again and again before the trials conclude next Sunday.

“I’ve been on something like six [national] teams, every one since 2001,” Williams said, “and this is the hardest team to make, for sure. And the one I’m most grateful for.”

Felix, who’s also entered in the 200, said she had no regrets.

“I don’t think I could have done anything more,” she said, her composure intact even if her quadruple gold chances were not.

Not being able to do anything more was the problem for Marshevet Hooker, who had the fastest times in the first two rounds but finished fourth Saturday in 10.93 seconds.

“It was a great field,” Hooker said.

Williams said she was so fearful of missing the team, she had nightmares Friday about friends texting her to console her. Not to worry. The Athens silver medalist finished behind Muna Lee (10.85) and Torri Edwards’ 10.90 and was as surprised as anyone that Hooker didn’t make the team.

“People were saying she was the one to beat up to that point and they kind of had her as a shoo-in and winning,” Williams said.

“It’s a testimony to how great the field was. It was anybody’s game and at the last minute you’d better be able to pull something off, and that’s what I did.”

Not everyone has been able to come up with that miracle.

Katie McGregor was fourth in the women’s 10,000 Friday for the second successive Olympic trials. And pole vaulter Tommy Skipper, a three-time NCAA champion at Oregon -- which gave him home-pit advantage at Hayward Field -- was eliminated Friday after he developed cramps in both legs and missed all three of his attempts at 18 feet and a half-inch.

Skipper, third at the 2006 U.S. championships, had a good chance to make the U.S. team and was in tears after he no-heighted.

“The whole year I’ve been preparing for this,” he said. “I let a lot of people down.”

Sprinter Tyson Gay on Saturday nearly sabotaged his chances of reaching the Beijing starting line by making a rookie mistake in his 100-meter dash preliminary heat.

Gay eased up as he approached what he thought was the finish line, only to realize he had about 30 meters to go.

Uh-oh. Wrong white line.

Gay turned his jets back on and grabbed fourth place, putting him into the quarterfinals and in position to run an American-record 9.77 seconds there.

And he almost didn’t get there.

“I almost started crying as soon as I crossed the line because I thought I didn’t make it,” he said of his first-round goof.

Several athletes who didn’t make the Athens team found redemption Saturday by qualifying to go to Beijing.

Hyleas Fountain of Dayton, Ohio, won the heptathlon with 6,667 points, inspired to a personal-best performance by memories of finishing one place out of an Olympic berth four years ago.

Jacquelyn Johnson finished second and Diana Pickler was third -- but Pickler’s identical twin sister, Julie, didn’t make it.

Fountain had built a big enough lead through the first six events she almost jogged through the finale, the 800.

“I was almost bawling like a little baby when I realized I made the team,” she said. “In 2004, I got fourth place and I wanted it so bad.

“I told people when you’re right on the bubble you almost wish you were last.”

Shotputter Christian Cantwell knows that feeling. He finished fourth at the 2004 trials but eliminated the suspense this time.

Reese Hoffa won with a throw of 72 feet 6 1/4 inches, and Cantwell was second at 71-2 3/4 . Two-time Olympic silver medalist Adam Nelson needed a superb effort on his fourth throw to finish third -- and had to wait while Daniel Taylor, with two chances to pass him, missed once by two inches and fouled the second time.

“Now the fun begins,” Cantwell said, “because all today was, was a plane ticket.”

Not for everyone it wasn’t. And that’s a scene we’ll see, with tears on one side and jubilation on the other, a lot of over the next week.

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Helene Elliott can be reached at helene.elliott@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Elliott, go to latimes.com/elliott.