DeLoach set to jump in prelims Tuesday

UPDATE: Janay DeLoach finished 13th in the qualifying round of the Olympics on Tuesday night, with the top 12 advancing to Wednesday's finals. Read more here.

Janay DeLoach’s quest to return to the Olympics really did get off on the wrong foot.

A compression fracture two years ago forced the former CSU All-American and 2012 bronze-medalist in the women’s long jump to switch her takeoff foot from the left to right.

She also went through a coaching change, a divorce. And a tremendous amount of self-doubt.

Maybe the Olympics really were a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Maybe it was time for DeLoach to move on with her life, to put the time and energy she had devoted to becoming a world-class athlete into her personal life, into her career as an occupational therapist.

No one had ever met the Olympic qualifying standard in the long jump for two different Summer Games jumping off a different foot each time.

What made DeLoach believe she could be the first?

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“I think knowing I had it in me,” she said days before leaving for the Rio Olympics, where she’ll begin competition Tuesday. “I felt deeply in my heart that I have a PR (personal record), and I still feel that way. Nothing has changed.

“To know that you’ve got something in there, you just have to dig deep to get it makes you want to work hard for it.”

Through all the turmoil, DeLoach, 30, has made it back. She’s in Rio this week, and not afraid to say she’s “going for gold” this time around.

“A lot of people spend their lifetime trying to make just one Olympics,” she said “And to be able to come back after switching legs, switching coaches, going through a multitude of things.th

“It feels phenomenal to know I achieved a repeat of my life dream.”

DeLoach believes she can jump farther off her right foot than she ever did off her left. Farther than the personal-best 23 feet, ¾ of an inch she went at the U.S. Olympic Trials in 2012 to earn her spot in the London Olympics.

Maybe even far enough to win the gold medal.

“We’re going for it,” she said. “It’s either go big or go home.”

It’s certainly within her reach. Even off what once would have been her wrong foot.

DeLoach is one of only eight American women to ever leap 23 feet, and her personal best ranks seventh all-time among U.S. women. Her best jump off her right foot, 22-8 3/4 is tied for the fifth-best in the world this year.

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Although DeLoach didn’t make the U.S. team until her final jump last month at the Olympic Trials last month in Eugene, Oregon, she was easily beyond 23 feet on the second of her six attempts, said her coach, Colorado State University assistant Karim Abdel Wahab. Everyone was already celebrating the effort, he said, when the red flag went up from the official at the take-off board, signaling that she had been just over the line, disqualifying the jump.

“With the tip of her spikes, she was just over the line,” Wahab said.

With one jump remaining that day, DeLoach, competing with a second-degree sprain of her right ankle, was in seventh place. She needed to get into the top three to make the U.S. team for Rio.

Her chances were bleak.

Somehow, some way, she found a little something extra on that final jump, leaping 22-9 to finish third, 1 ¾ inches farther than the fourth-place finisher that day and her own bronze-medal winning jump in London.

“It’s amazing,” Wahab said. “Indescribable, to tell you the truth.”

DeLoach has adjusted to new coaches, Wahab, who is with her in Rio, and CSU jumps coach Ryan Baily. She’s back together with ex-husband Patrick Soukup, who she plans to marry again soon. He’s in Rio, too, to cheer her on, as are her parents and younger brother, Joe, and a handful of other supporters.

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At an Olympic send-off party last weekend in Old Town Fort Collins, she was soaking up the energy of more than 300 well-wishers, smiling from ear to ear as she posed for pictures with fans and signed autographs.

“That happy go-lucky, carefree me is back,” she said. “I feel phenomenal. I’m blessed to have what I have. My coaches, my family, Patrick. All of this means that I feel whole again and healthy again. It feels so good to be back.”

Follow reporter Kelly Lyell at twitter.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news

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