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Lolo Jones Cried Talking About Her Race This Morning, And It Was Tough To Watch

As you probably know by now, Lolo Jones barely missed a medal at the Olympics last night, finishing fourth in the women’s 100 hurdles. You might also know that fellow American runners Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells outpaced Jones in the final, taking home silver and bronze, respectively – and that they were less than thrilled with Jones becoming a sensation. You know that Jones was painted in a not-so-flattering light by The New York Times in the days leading up to the race. But you didn’t know what Jones herself thought of all this.

This morning, on the Today show, we found out. As one might expect, she was bitterly disappointed at not medaling. As one might also expect, she wasn’t too happy about that NYT story. As one might or might not expect, depending on whether one believes Jones is a calculating image-obsessed robot or not, she also showed some pretty strong emotion. The full segment is below, but the tears start after the two-minute mark:

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I watched that clip and I felt bad, and not just because Jones is bummed about missing out on a medal despite running her best race of the season days after being put under a microscope in an unfavorable way. I felt bad because I couldn’t shake the nagging thought: is this real? The backlash to Jones’ fame planted the seeds of doubt, and so now there’s always that cynicism there, the thought that I can’t let myself get too emotionally invested, because what if the doubters are right and she isn’t even as emotionally invested as she appears to be herself?

And I feel bad because: of course her disappointment is real. She almost won an Olympic medal and missed out. And the NYT story was awfully harsh. She was right to single out the Anna Kournikova comparison – though it came from a quote; the writer didn’t make it – as unfair. (As an aside: even Kournikova made the Wimbledon semis as a 16-year-old; there was a time when the hype was warranted on tennis terms even in her case.)

Additionally, the sentence: “If there is a box to check off, Jones has checked it. Except for the small part about actually achieving Olympic success as a hurdler” way, way shortchanges Jones’s success on the track – this is a two-time gold medalist at the World Indoor Championships we’re talking about here. I don’t doubt that she read that and hurt.

That’s not to say everything Jones did in the interview was perfect – painting “the media” with a broad brush as unfairly slamming her when “the media” was what made her a star in the first place wasn’t fair on her part. With increased stardom comes increased scrutiny. Call it out when the scrutiny goes too far, but don’t act like everyone’s in on it.

Still: it’s been an undoubtedly rough few days for Jones. She can get ome satisfaction knowing she ran a solid race, but a medal would have been especially sweet in the face of the criticism that’s now even coming from her fellow competitors. The fall from being America’s sweetheart can be especially fast and hard – and that’s why, despite my guilt-ridden doubts, I’d guess that those tears above were more from Lolo Jones the person than Lolo Jones the media creation.

[The Big Lead]

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