Michelle Jenneke Shares Positive Message Following Injury at Paris Games
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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.”
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.