East St. Louis’ Dawn Harper coming out of retirement to train for Tokyo Olympic bid
Five months after becoming a mother for the first time, Dawn Harper-Nelson has announced she is returning to track and field.
An East St., Louis native and 2008 100 meter hurdles Olympic champion, Harper said Monday that she is stepping out of retirement to pursue a berth on the 2020 United States Olympic Team which will compete in Tokyo.
“I know I still have the talent and can do it,” the 35-year-old Harper-Nelson told Reuters.
Harper-Nelson and her husband Alonzo Nelson Jr., became parents of a daughter, Harper Renee Nelson, in April. But still with the talent and fierce desire to excel and compete, Harper-Nelson said she is currently training and hopes to win a third Olympic medal next year.
Harper-Nelson won gold at Beijing in 2008 and claimed a silver medal in London 2012, but retired from the sport last year to start a family.
“The whole time, I didn’t know in my heart if I was done,” she said. “I didn’t want Harper to feel like her birth symbolized mom’s dream dying. So I talked with my family and I talked with my husband, and my husband was like, ‘We are doing it if you want to do it.’”
Harper-Nelson currently is in discussions with former UCLA coach and longtime mentor Bob Kersee to direct her training along with her husband in East St. Louis. Kersee is the husband of Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
A big name in Illinois track and field since she broke the state record in the 100 meter hurdles as a 14-year-old freshman at East St.Louis, Harper-Nelson announced her retirement last September after a brilliant career spanning two decades.
A 2002 graduate of East St. Louis, where she won six state championships in the hurdles under coach Nino Fennoy, Harper attended UCLA where she was a six-time All-American.
In addition to winning the Olympic Gold Medal in 2008, she earned silver four years later in the London Olympics. She missed out on her second gold by just .02 seconds, but became the first American female hurdler to win the gold medal in one Olympics and medal in a second.
The world’s former No. 1-ranked hurdler, Harper-Nelson also won a silver medal in the 2017 World Championships in London and bronze medal in Daegu, South Korea, in 2011. She is a four-time winner of the Diamond League championship. No other 100-meter hurdler has won the championship more than once.
Harper’s top time of 12.37 seconds in the 100 meter hurdles still ranks as one of the top 15 in history.
This story was originally published November 5, 2019 at 3:34 PM.
