The individual 400m win at London meant the world to me: Sanya Richards-Ross

Sanya Richards-Ross, one of the best quartermilers of all time, and four-time Olympic champion, recounts how she overcame the 2008 Games disappointment to realise her dream

Leading into the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Sanya Richards-Ross was the favourite to claim the women’s 400m gold.

Sanya was among the world’s best, racking up timings under the 50 second-mark. A couple of years earlier, Sanya had finished the World Cup race in 48.70 seconds, which was a new United States record. This mark, incidentally, has held good to this day.

Sanya had finished sixth in the 2004 Athens Olympics, and had her sights set on claiming the top prize at Beijing. But Sanya’s world turned upside down, when just a few weeks before the mega event in the Chinese capital, she found out that she was pregnant. Sanya chose to get an abortion — a traumatic decision to make.

In an interview to Bleacher Report, Sanya stated that she flew to Beijing just a day after her abortion. Mentally and physically worn out, Sanya pulled through the 400m race to win bronze. She did win gold for the 4x400m United States relay team with a brilliant anchor run. The individual 400m race, however, was Sanya’s ultimate goal.

The Jamaica-born athlete, who was in Bengaluru as the TCS World 10K Bengaluru International Event Ambassador, spoke about the navigating through the deeply difficult experience.

“That was such a difficult experience, especially so because my coach and my dad did not know that I was pregnant. Only my mother, sister and now husband (former NFL player Aaron Ross) knew. It took a long time for me to talk about it, because it was such a tough personal situation,” Sanya said in a media interaction here.

A devout Christian, Sanya battled a spiritual crisis as well. “A lot of what I face was moral and spiritual warfare. I didn’t feel like I was worthy of being an Olympic champion. That was a big knock on my mental wellbeing, even more than physical. All this showed up in the 400m individual final.