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For Howard's Oliver, Great Leaps Forward
David Oliver has posted three of the world's top five times in the 110-meter hurdles this season, including 12.95 seconds in May.
(Axel Schmidt - AFP/Getty Images)
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"What's the shortest event they have?" Oliver recalled asking.
"The 100," she said.
"They don't have a 40?" he said. "I won't make it 100 meters."
By his sophomore year at Denver East High, Oliver was on the track team, but he was also a football player. At Howard, he committed himself to both, playing wide receiver in the fall and running hurdles in the spring. As it turned out, he preferred track. He liked that he controlled the outcome. A four-time Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference outdoor champion, he posted a collegiate personal-best of 13.55 as a senior.
At an indoor meet in 2004, Oliver met American record holder Dominique Arnold, who urged him to consider track as a career. Later that winter, Arnold introduced him to Allen Johnson.
Oliver asked Johnson, the 1996 Olympic gold medal winner, for his autograph. Johnson, however, declined. "He wouldn't give it to me because he said, 'I'm going to see you at every meet,' " Oliver said.
Said Johnson, "I knew he would be as good as he is."
With stars seemingly aligned behind him, Oliver sent an e-mail to Brooks Johnson, asking for a place in his training group. Johnson welcomed him, almost immediately helping him devise a three-year plan leading up to this summer's Olympics in Beijing. It basically went like this: In 2005, get experience; in 2006, get better; and in 2007, build on all of that.
Everything went largely according to plan. In 2006, he finished fifth at the World Athletics Final, made decent money at European meets and earned a No. 9 world ranking. By 2007 he had signed a Nike contract, but ran into hamstring problems. Though he dropped his personal best to 13.14, he bowed out of the August world championships in the semifinal round.
"Those are the things that drive you," Oliver said, "the disappointments."
Oliver has dropped two surprises this season, winning the U.S. indoor title in February and then posting his sub-13 time in Doha, Qatar, in May.
"It's extremely exciting that he even decided to try to the hurdles," said Chambers, who plans to fly here Friday from her home. "There are really no words for how far he has come. It's really beyond exciting."
