Gail Devers 1966–

Sprinter and hurdler

At a Glance…

Improper Diagnoses Worsened Physical Condition

Sprint Victory at Olympics Stunned Track World

Dominant Competitor in Sprints After Olympics

Sources

While Gail Devers achieved fame as the fastest combination female sprinter and hurdler in history, she is perhaps best known for having overcome a serious illness that almost rendered her permanently disabled. After suffering for nearly two years from Graves’ disease, a dangerous thyroid condition, Devers made a dramatic return to competition and rapidly established herself as one of the leading female track and field performers in the world. Though initially known primarily as a hurdler, she stunned audiences with her victory in the 100-meter sprint at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain.

Devers has demonstrated a rare blend of power, speed, and intense concentration. “I never know where I am in a race,” Devers was quoted as saying in the New York Times. “When I cross the finish line, I wait for someone to say, ’Gail Devers, you won’or ’Gail Devers, you lost” This ability to block out distractions is part of the formula that has resulted in so many of Devers’s triumphs.

A deeply religious woman, Devers believes that God played a vital role in defeating her illness and helping her realize her potential as an athlete. Her faith was established at an early age. The daughter of Reverend Larry

Devers, a Baptist pastor, Devers grew up in San Diego, California. Regarding her childhood, Devers told Sports Illustrated, “Wewere a Leave It to Beaver family.… We had picnics, rode bikes and played touch football together. We did Bible studies together.”She began winning gold medals during her adolescence; while attending Sweetwater High School in National City, her outstanding performance on the women’s track team helped the school win the San Diego sectional track and field team title. In 1984, at age 17, Devers won the 100-meter dash and 100-meter hurdles, and also took second in the long jump at the state high school track and field championships.

While attending UCLA, Devers’s development as a runner made a quantum leap under the coaching of Bob Kersee, who is the husband of Devers’s closest friend, the renowned athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Bob Kersee saw Devers’s immense potential and, much to the young athlete’s approval, put her on a grueling training regimen. Quoted in Track & Field News, Devers said, “I loved doing six or seven events in a meet because I was the first to start and the last to finish and there was no time in between to just sit around.” Initially, she had planned to

At a Glance…

Bom Yolanda Gail Oevers, November 19, 1966, in Seattle, WA; daughter of Larry (a minister) and Alabe Devers (a teacher’s aide); married Ron Roberts, 1988 (divorced, 1991). Education: University of California al Los Angeles, B.A., 1988.

Fastest female combination sprinter and hurdler in history. Overcame serious illness to become one of the top track and field performers of her era. Won 100 meter dash and 100-meter hurdles, and placed second in long jump in California high school State championships, 1984; earned berth on U.S. Olympic team, 1988; set American record and earned silver medal in 100-meter hurdles. World Track & Field Championships, 1991; won gold medal (100-meter dash) at Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, 1992; ran world’s fastest time in 100-meter hurdles, 1992 and 1993; won gold medal (60-meter dash) at World Indoor Track & Field Championships, 1993; won gold medals (100 meter dash, 100-meter hurdles) at World Track & Field Championships, 1993; set American indoor record in 50-meter dash and world’s record in 60-meter dash, 1993; won 21 of 23 races in hurdles and sprints, 1993; ran world’s fastest time in 100-meter dash, 1993.

Selected awards: U.S. Women’s Athlete of the Year, Track & Field News, 1993; runner-up, World Women’s Athlete of the Year, Track & Field News, 1993.

Addresses: c/o U.S. Olympic Committee, 1750 East Boulder St., Colorado Springs, CO 80909.

concentrate on her sprints and not even pursue hurdling while in college, due to her small size. Nevertheless, under Kersee’s guidance, she stuck with the event and reaped tremendous success; by 1988 Devers had become one of the top female hurdlers in the U.S. That year she set a national record of 12.61 seconds in 100-meter hurdles, and also qualified to compete for the U.S. team in the event at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea.

However, just as Devers appeared to be approaching her peak as an athlete, she began suffering from a variety of physical problems. After qualifying for the U.S. Olympic team, she found herself plagued by frequent muscle pulls and tired legs, making it difficult for her to complete simple workouts. Devers’s problems took their toll at Seoul, where she produced her slowest time in the 100-meter hurdles since her high school days and failed to qualify for the finals. Soon after, she suffered from impaired hearing, memory loss, migraine headaches, and involuntary shakes and convulsions. Her hair began falling out and, by January 1989, Devers had lost nearly 23 pounds, her frame becoming so slight that she had to wear children’s clothing.

Improper Diagnoses Worsened Physical Condition

Over the next two and a half years, Devers visited more than a dozen physicians. Several doctors told her that she was simply training too hard, while others thought she had diabetes. Meanwhile, Devers’s condition worsened, her list of symptoms expanding to include vision loss and nearly perpetual menstrual bleeding. At one point, she seriously considered ending her track career. “I felt like a washed-up athlete, and I began to doubt I could ever again compete at my former level,” she explained in Family Circle. But Kersee convinced her to stay with it.

Following an almost two-year layoff, Devers tested her condition in a minor track meet in 1990, but performed poorly. Then in the fall of that same year, a chance meeting with a team physician at UCLA finally led to solving the mystery. The physician noticed that Devers’s eyes were bulging and that she had a goiter on her throat, both of which might reflect a thyroid condition. Subsequent tests revealed that Devers was afflicted with Graves’ disease, an autoimmune disorder resulting from an overactive thyroid gland. She was told that her condition had progressed almost to a cancerous state, perhaps as little as weeks away from malignancy.

Because the beta-blocker medication for the disease was prohibited by the Olympic Committee as an illegal substance for athletes, Devers elected to receive radiation treatment. Several weeks of radiation targeted against the diseased part of her thyroid gland resulted in a dramatic improvement in her symptoms, prompting her to think that she was cured. However, new problems erupted in early 1991, among them severely painful blood blisters on the soles of her feet and between her toes. Devers told Family Circle, “The pain was so excruciating that I sometimes crawled because it hurt too much to walk.”

Devers went to a podiatrist who wrongly diagnosed the condition as a severe case of athlete’s foot. Eventually, the pain of walking became so great that her parents had to carry her around her apartment. Devers began to believe that she might never walk again, a fear that seemed imminent when one doctor told her that he might have to amputate her feet. After consulting a second opinion though, it was determined that Devers’s problems with her extremities and skin were side effects from the radiation. The radiation had also completely destroyed her thyroid gland, forcing Devers to be placed on a lifetime regimen of daily medication.

One month after the radiation was stopped, Devers was more or less healthy again, except for a sensitivity to the sun and occasional skin-related problems due to her medication. Virtually as soon as she could walk again, she resumed her practice at UCLA. The first workout of her comeback was a slow walk around the track, which she had to do wearing only socks because shoes still hurt her feet. Progressing rapidly from walking to jogging to sprinting workouts, Devers regained her strength in time for a meet in March of 1991, where she qualified for the prestigious TAC (The Athletics Congress) Meet to be held in June. At the TAC Meet she won the 100-meter hurdles, achieving the fastest time by an American woman that year.

The following summer, Devers took second place in the 100-meter hurdles at the World Championships in Tokyo, Japan, and two weeks later, set a new American record in the event at a track meet in Berlin, Germany. While she achieved tremendous success in track that year, Devers’s three-year marriage to Ron Roberts fell apart. She explained in Family Circle that, because of her illness, “I had lost touch with myself. My only desire was to be alone…. I felt if I could just get back to running, I would find Gail again.”

Sprint Victory at Olympics Stunned Track World

As the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona approached, Kersee convinced Devers to put more effort into the 100-meter dash, since he had always felt that her greatest potential was as a sprinter. With her physical problems behind her, Devers trained harder than ever and made the 1992 Olympic team in both the 100-meter dash and the 100 meter hurdles. While at the Olympics, during the quarter finals of the 100 meters, she temporarily lost all feeling in her feet in the starting blocks. Despite fears that her illness was flaring up again, Devers shocked everyone by winning the gold medal in the 100-meter dash with the best time of her career, which nipped second-place finisher Julie Cuthbert of Jamaica by only .01 seconds.

Her surprise victory led to some suspicion about use of performance-enhancing drugs, but no evidence of such assistance was found and rumors were soon dispelled. However, the ecstasy of victory turned to agony five days later. Running too fast in the finals of the hurdles event, Devers overstrided and caught one of the barriers with her foot, tripped, and fell across the finish line. The fall dropped her to fifth place, ruining her chances of becoming the second woman in Olympic history to win gold medals in both the hurdles and the 100-meter dash. “I guess it just isn’t meant to be,” she said afterwards, displaying her fatalistic view of life.

Confirming her position as the fastest woman in the world, Devers dominated the indoor track season in 1993. She focused more on sprinting than hurdling at that time, and lost just one indoor dash in eight performances. Her achievement was especially impressive since she had paid little attention to indoor running prior to that year. She set an American record of 6.99 seconds in the 60-meter dash at the USA/Mobil Indoor Track and Field Championships in New Jersey in February, and in March she sped to a world-record time of 6.95 seconds while winning the event at the World Indoor Championships held in Toronto, Canada.

Dominant Competitor in Sprints After Olympics

Strain from her grueling indoor season resulted in a hamstring injury early in her outdoor training in the spring of 1993. She bounced back quickly, however, under Kersee’s tutelage, and was in peak condition for the World Outdoor Track and Field Championships held in Stuttgart, Germany in August. Avoiding the mistake that had cost her a dual victory at the Olympics, Devers won titles in both the 100-meter hurdles and the 100-meter dash. Her victory over Merlene Ottey of Jamaica in the dash was so close that it took the judges three minutes of studying the photograph taken at the finish before they could confirm Devers as the winner. The head of the Jamaican team protested the decision, but Devers’s victory was upheld. Earning three major titles in 1993, Devers finished the year with a phenomenal 21 victories in 23 races. She also ran the fastest times in both the 100-meter dash and 100-meter hurdles that year.

Going from the verge of having her feet amputated to winning an Olympic gold medal in just eighteen months, Gail Devers’s return to running glory is widely regarded as the greatest comeback story in the history of track and field. Few athletes, male or female, have possessed her rare combination of great physical skill and steadfastness in the face of debilitating setbacks. She gives much of the credit to God’s intervention; in Family Circle Devers noted, “My family and friends gave me tremendous support, but faith in God and myself kept me going. I don’t wish what I’ve been through on anyone, but I’m a stronger, more determined person because of it. After conquering Graves’disease, I know there’s no hurdle I can’t get over.”

Sources

Essence, May 1993, p. 96.

Family Circle, May 18, 1993, pp. 21-3.

Jet, August 17, 1992, pp. 51-2.

New York Times, August 2, 1992, Section 8, pp. 1, 4; February 24, 1993, p. B14; February 27, 1993, pp. 29, 32; March 13, 1993, p. 32; August 17, 1993, pp. B9, B13.

Sporting News, August 17, 1992, p. 5.

Sports Illustrated, August 10, 1992, pp. 18-19; May 10, 1993, pp. 41-3.

Track & Field News, October 1992, pp. 52-3; November 1993, pp. 36-7, 48-9; February 1994, pp. 10-11, 14, 17.

—Ed Decker