Lauryn Williams’ Championship races (part 2 of the Lauryn Williams Interview)

Lauryn Williams Championship races

In 2005, Lauryn Williams was officially the fastest woman in the world, winning the world championship in Helsinki in 10.93. The year before, she had surprised herself by being selected for the Athens Olympics and coming second in 10.96 behind Yulia Nesterenko (Belarus) ahead of Veronica Campbell (who had not yet added -Brown to her name). Nesterenko was eighth in the world championship the following year and did not reach the final of the 2008 Olympics. As he was part of the Soviet Union system, questions could be asked about her stellar performance. I’d like to point out that the questions are being asked by your correspondent, not by Lauryn].

As Lauryn explained in the previous article, competing in the 2004 Olympics had not really been on her radar. She describes herself as “kind of like a deer in the headlights. I had no idea that that opportunity was coming my way earlier in the year”, adding, “I think I made the most of it, but I did walk away feeling like, gosh, could’ve, would’ve, should’ve, what if I would have won”. When I pointed out that she had come second, her pithy reply was, “And second’s good, but it’s not first.”

Then, in 2005, came her chance to claim the official world title and the unofficial claim to be the fastest woman in the world. Recalling it nearly 20 years afterward, she told me: “2005 is such a long time ago. But I know that the thing that was overwhelming for me was that it was kind of redemption from 2004, my first Olympic Games.  And so 2005 was that chance to really get to the finish line first. And it was like, OK, I can be the fastest person in the world. I am the fastest person in the world at this moment. So it was an advantageous kind of redeeming feeling to have 2005 after 2004”.

At the 2007 World Champs, she took silver behind Veronica Campbell. Both athletes were clocked at 11.01, and after a long wait, Campbell was awarded the gold by a margin of two-thousandths of a second. It was not our sport’s finest hour, and the process took 30 minutes to decide who won.  Williams recalls: “At first, Veronica’s name flashed up on the scoreboard, and then my name went up as the winner for about two minutes before switching back to Veronica. We then had to wait about 30 minutes for Veronica to be confirmed as the gold medallist”. Lauryn also helped the US take gold in the 4 by 100 relay in a final team including Allyson Felix, Mikele Barber, and Torri…