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ROME -- After her narrow 12.60 victory at yesterday's Athletissima Grand Prix, Michelle Perry gave a brief deconstruction of her current race form, one which nearly mirrored the race.
"I've been doing the run-in well and the end well," said the reigning world champion in the 100m hurdles, "but the middle has kind of been shaky this year."
In Lausanne, European Champion Susana Kallur dashed to a clear lead by hurdle four and firmly held her ground until the ninth, when Perry found the necessary closing gear to narrowly outlean the Swede at the line to claim the win by just .02 seconds.
"I could feel her, and so I had to go after her the last few hurdles."
The outcome also mirrored the meet billboards and placards seen throughout the sprawling city of 120,000 on the northern shores of Lac Leman. The poster featured a smiling portrait of Perry soon after her victory in 2006 where she clocked 12.43, the year's quickest performance.
"I'm excited that they started using me," Perry said, smiling widely. "I really love track and field and it's always great to be someone that they use to promote track and field. And hopefully I'll get a bigger fan base who'll enjoy watching me compete."
It was the second straight victory for Perry, and seventh in nine races this year, and followed what appeared to be a pair of blips on an otherwise relatively seamless trek on the way to defend her global crown in Osaka next month.
A fierce competition, Perry wasn't content with her runner-up showing to Ginnie Powell at the U.S. Championships in Indianapolis last month.
"In the final, first I false started and then I just stayed in the blocks and tried to catch the whole field," Perry said on the eve of the Golden Spike Grand Prix meet late last month in Ostrava, Czech Republic. "I was a bit disappointed."
In Ostrava, Perry, a former heptathlete who made the decision to pursue the hurdles full time after the New York Grand Prix in 2005, described the race as her worst in the past two years. "I'm a little pissed right now at what I did at the US Champs," she said in Ostrava, "so I really want to make up for that."
That didn't quite happen in the eastern Czech city where a false start disqualification left her even more peeved.
"I think Ostrava was a culmination of what happened at nationals, I had a lot of traveling, and it was just so many things just rolled into that meet," Perry said. "And things just kind of exploded there. So I was just kind of like, ‘I just gotta get home, get settled, train, and get my head back into competing well."
She bounced back with a 12.56 win in Paris for Golden League victory No. 2, avenging her loss to Powell who didn't finish the race in the Parisian capital after tripping and tumbling. Her performance was just shy of her 12.51 winner at the Prefontaine Classic.
I've got a few things to clean up technically but I guess as a hurdler you never really run a perfect race. You're always going to find something wrong."
Perry is one of only four athletes still alive in the hunt for the $1 million IAAF Golden League Jackpot hunt just two meets into the six competition series. Her chase continued on Friday at the Golden Gala Kinder+Sport meet at Rome's Olympic stadium.
Photo: Athletissima meeting billboard, Lausanne. Photo by Bob Ramsak/TRACK PROFILE Report
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