Michelle Jenneke Shares Positive Message Following Injury at Paris Games

After rupturing her hamstring in Round 1 of the 100-meter hurdles, the athlete failed to qualify for the Olympic finals.

Michelle Jenneke / Hannah Peters/Getty Images

The Paris Games didn’t have quite the ending Michelle Jenneke had hoped for.

The Australian hurdler made her Olympic debut at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, where her Round 1 time of 13.26 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles wasn’t quite enough to advance her to the finals. She headed into the 2024 games in better position. Only a month ago, at the FBK Games in the Netherlands, she notched her personal best in the event: a 12.65.

So, she headed to Paris with high expectations. But her Olympic podium hopes were disappointingly dashed in the first round of her signature event, when she suffered an injury mid-race. “Not the Olympics I had dreamed it would be,” she expressed in an Instagram post on Aug. 9. “I felt ready to run the race of my life but unfortunately I fully ruptured one of my hamstring tendons in my heat which caused me to hit a hurdle and take a pretty big fall.”

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A post shared by Michelle Jenneke (@mjenneke93)

Despite the mishap, Jenneke chose to run in the repechage round on Aug. 8, a new addition to the Olympic track and field competition which gives athletes in some events a second chance to qualify for the finals. “I’m immensely proud that I showed up today against the odds to finish off my olympic campaign,” she said of the decision. “Today was all about not giving up and leaving no stone unturned. I gave it my all and honoured I now get to call myself a two time Olympian.”

Though she couldn’t make it happen on the track, the athlete has every reason to be proud. We wish Jenneke a speedy recovery.