Harrigan Scott-Reflects on Her Olympic Games

Taheisa Harrigan-Scott, far right, competes in the London Olympic Games 100m first tround

LONDON—With the pressure of qualifying for the London Olympic Games off her shoulder, Tahesai Harrigan-Scott was thinking big for the marquee sporting spectacle.

Among her goals was to go a step further than her Beijing Olympic Games 100m semifinals placing when she lined up in London. But for the second successive Olympic Games, she ended up in the same Doctor’s office.

“Training had been going extremely, extremely well,” she emphasized on reflection. “I had a really big plan for me for the Olympic Games.  To see that I got injured in February and that it prolonged throughout the season made me note that I was in the same physical therapy office in 2012 as I was in, in 2008 and I asked if its for me. But, you go through trials during your career and sometimes you can’t let your thoughts derail you by thinking that every time this big events comes up, your are ineffective in it,” she said.

“If I’m able to go to the next Olympics, then I’ll go out there and give it all I have as in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.”

Harrigan-Scott said the final of her event was fast and one had to bring their A game to compete as winner Shelly Ann Fraser-Price ran 10.75 and eight place was 11.01.

“In the history of games or championships I’ve been to, 11.01 never gets you last place—you can tell that the girls were ready to run,” she said. “In reference to seeing how I would have done, considering that last year I ran 10.89 wind aided, I felt that I could have done that legally, because once your body does it even with a little bit of wind, it knows the feeling,” she explained.

“I went into the season thinking that I could break the 11 seconds barrier, with or without wind, so I actually saw myself making the Olympic final this year—but it didn’t happen. The girls did a fantastic job, with 10.75 winning it and 10.81 in third. You can imagine people running 10.89 and thinking ‘I didn’t get a medal.’ But, everybody has their own experience through the games and it just that you have to come out there and who does it the best on that day makes it to the top.”

Asked what can she take away from London to build on in the future, the territory’s double sprint record holder who has produced the fastest times for a decade but ran he slowed times since high school, said there were things she took for granted in her career.  

“I love track and field—not that I don’t train hard not that I don’t work hard, not that I don’t learn from the experiences, but getting hurt and not being able to run 11.3, not even 11.4 not even on a good day, you realize things can change for the worst,” she pointed out. “I realize you have to listen to yourself, because I thought my injury was in the hip flexor, whereas, you have a professional telling you it’s in your quad. So, it’s just for me to listen to my body, take the time off if it says it needs, if it needs a break, then to go out there and continue to work hard and continue to push forward no matter what the situation is.”

During her Olympic Games race where she ran a season’s best 11.59 seconds, she said she felt good going in wanted to work on the first part of her race which is usually her best, but said it was shaky, with a series of technical flaws she didn’t overcome.

“I’m a little disappointed as I fell I could have run faster and based on training, I though I was in 11.3 shape and anything faster I would have been happy with it, but, other than that, I thought I should have run faster that I did.”