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LJUBLJANA, Slovenia -- At 48, Merlene Ottey may have finally reached the end of her Olympic road.
With the steady rise of other sprinters in Slovenia, where Ottey has lived since 1999 and represented internationally since 2002, her bid was always an extreme long shot. Her struggle with allergies, a condition which has dogged her for the better part of a decade, prevented her from training until early May. She relocated her training base from Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital, to Koper on the Adriatic coast in the spring, but never fully acquired the form she felt she was still very much capable of.
With three silver and five bronze, Ottey has won more Olympic medals in track and field competition than any other women. If the International Olympic Committee decides to upgrade the athletes who finished behind Marion Jones in 2000, who was disqualified late last year for doping, Ottey could still claim another medal, increasing her medal haul to nine.
Olympic gold always proved elusive, although she came within 0.005 seconds at the Atlanta Games in 1996, where she finished behind Gail Devers in the 100m. Her first Olympic medal, bronze in the 200m, came on July 30, 1980 in Moscow, before many of the current crop of the world’s top sprinters were born.
In all she competed in 53 Olympic races and in 14 finals, both records.
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