Lolo Jones got off to a slow start in her first track event since competing in bobsled at the Sochi Olympics in February, but her shuttle hurdles relay team still won at the Drake Relays in Des Moines, Iowa, on Friday night.
Jones, who said she has lost more than 20 pounds since Sochi, ran the second leg of a 4x100m shuttle hurdles relay on the USA Red team with 2013 world champion Brianna Rollins, Queen Harrison and Vashti Thomas.
Rollins handed a lead to Jones, who lost it with a stuttering hop over her first hurdle, taking nine steps instead of the customary seven. Harrison and Thomas got it back to win in 50.93 seconds, beating a Jamaican team that ran 52.01.
“I made probably the biggest hurdle mistake you can make … for a 100m hurdle race, you’re pretty much sitting in a coffin like ‘the race is over,'” Jones said, according to The Associated Press. “So at that moment I crossed the line I was like, ‘All right, Queen! Let’s go team,’ because if it was individual, Lolo would be in last place.”
Nia Ali, the 2014 world indoor 60m hurdles champion, suffered an injury in warm-ups, which kept a USA White team from competing. It was set to include 2008 Olympic champion Dawn Harper-Nelson and 2012 Olympic bronze medalist Kellie Wells.
In other events, 2013 world champion LaShawn Merritt edged rival and 2012 Olympic champion Kirani James in the 400m, 44.44 to 44.60. 2004 Olympic champion Jeremy Wariner was last in 46.90.
2012 Olympic bronze medalist Hansle Parchment of Jamaica won the 110m hurdles in a world-leading 13.14 seconds, beating a field that included Americans David Oliver and Ryan Wilson, who went one-two at the 2013 World Championships.
“I am surprised with that time,” said Parchment, who ran .12 faster than Oliver’s previous world lead for 2014, to Lewis Johnson for Universal Sports. “I didn’t expect to run that fast so quickly [early in the season].”
2012 Olympic silver medalist Michael Tinsley won the 400m hurdles in 48.57, ahead of Olympic bronze medalist Javier Culson (48.68). Olymipc champion Felix Sanchez was sixth in 49.84.
