LONDON—We interrupt this Lolo Jones Program to bring you some less-titillating news.She might not win the 100-meter hurdles on Tuesday. It may go to an Aussie or a Turk or even another American.That might shock millions of people who don’t realize there actually are other American women who can hurdle. One of them is even the defending gold medalist.
Maybe if you subscribe to Track and Field News. Almost every other magazine and TV show went loco for Lolo in the buildup to London.She has a compelling story—poor upbringing, deadbeat dad, redemption after falling in Beijing. But let’s be honest.If Jones wasn’t H-O-T, she might as well be rowing for Burma. Among her many skills is marketing, and she has preened her way to the top of the Olympic medal stand.Lolo was on the cover of Time magazine’s Olympic preview edition. She’s been profiled by Rolling Stone, HBO and NBC Nightly News. She did the Tonight Show.All that, and she barely made the U.S. team.Harper won the Olympic Trials and Kellie Wells was second. The fact fame can out-race accomplishment isn’t exactly a shock. Ask Tim Tebow.But isn’t the whole point of the Olympics to run really fast?
What Paris Hilton rock have I been living under? Celebrity inevitably trumps substance, so we might as well enjoy Lolo’s semi-nude magazine spreads. It’s just hard not to be bothered if you actually have a substantial resume.
“Hmm,” Harper said. “At one point it did.”
When that point ended, she didn’t say. You get the feeling we’re not there yet.Harper has a pretty good story of her own. She was raised in tough East St. Louis. She didn’t even have a shoe sponsor last Olympics, so she went to China with scruffy old spikes.Embarrassed, she borrowed some nice ones from training partner Michelle Perry. Harper won, but most people just remember Jones hitting the next-to-last hurdle to lose.And it’s not as if Harper isn’t attractive. It’s easy to imagine her posing in only a red ribbon,as Jones did for Outside magazineHarper has been asked to pose for a few pictures at the Olympic Village the past week. But if Lolo is Tebow, she is Matt Hasselbeck.
“I’ve had my family issues as well,” Harper said. “But I’m not willing to say all of them just so I can be in the paper.”
It sure sounds as if Lolo-mania rankles her. Jones went from genuine article to marketing maven when she came out as the Almost-30-year-old Virgin a couple of months ago.Then she did the Tonight Show and told Jay Leno she might ask Tebow on a church date.Talk about media catnip. Kim Kardashian probably fired her publicist that day for not thinking up a Tebow/virginity angle .Jones is now up to 247,660 Twitter followers, by far the most of any U.S. track and field athlete. She has a half-dozen sponsors, ranging from Red Bull to Asics to Oakley to BP.Harper has one. Nike has spared her the indignity of borrowing shoes for London’s races.
“Everything Lolo’s gotten is wonderful,” Harper said. “I don’t want to take anything away from her. That’s her journey.”
You can’t blame Jones for taking it. But when the hurdlers go on their big Olympic journey Tuesday night, I can’t help but pull for Harper.Even if all she does well is run really fast.
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