Kendra Harrison Incredible Hurdler Olympian

by DianaNloves | Olympians

On August 2, 2021, Harrison won the silver medal in the 100 meter hurdle race at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Early life
Kendra Harrison was born in Tennessee on September 18, 1992, and adopted by Gary and Karon Harrison; she grew up in a large family with ten other children, eight of them also adopted. Harrison’s first sport was soccer; she took up track and field at Clayton High School. She soon became a leading scholastic hurdler, winning state championship titles at the 2010 and 2011 North Carolina Class 4A state meets; in 2011 she also won the 100 m hurdles at the New Balance Nationals and was named Gatorade North Carolina Girls Track & Field Athlete of the Year.

College athletics
After graduating from Clayton High in 2011 Harrison went to Clemson University; as a freshman in 2012 she was Atlantic Coast Conference champion in the 400 m hurdles and the 4 × 400 m relay and qualified for the NCAA championships in both hurdles races. She competed in the 2012 Olympic Trials in the 100 m hurdles but was eliminated in the heats. In 2013, she placed fifth in the 100 m hurdles (12.88) and fourth in the 400 m hurdles (55.75) at the NCAA outdoor championships.

Harrison transferred from Clemson to the University of Kentucky after the 2013 season, together with sprinter Dezerea Bryant and coach Tim Hall. She continued to develop, winning both the 100 m hurdles (12.86) and the 400 m hurdles (54.76) at the 2014 Southeastern Conference (SEC) championships; she was the first athlete to win both events since 1999. She entered the NCAA outdoor championships as the leading favorite and collegiate leader in the 400 m hurdles, but failed to match her personal best and lost to Texas A&M’s Shamier Little; in the 100 m hurdles she placed fifth for the second consecutive year.

Harrison injured her hamstring in the winter of 2014–15 and missed the early part of the 2015 indoor season. She returned in time to win the 60 m hurdles at the SEC and NCAA indoor championships, setting personal bests in both meets; her time in the NCAA meet (7.87 seconds) ranked her fourth in the world that indoor season. Harrison also won her first outdoor NCAA title in 2015, winning the 100 m hurdles in 12.55; in the 400 m hurdles she placed second to Little in a personal best 54.09, at that point the second-fastest in the world that year.

In November 2015, Harrison was named as a 2016 recipient of the NCAA’s Today’s Top 10 Award, presented annually to 10 individuals who completed their athletic eligibility in the previous school year “for successes on the field, in the classroom and in the community.”

Professional
Following her graduation, University of Kentucky coach Edrick Floréal continued to train her. At the 2015 United States championships, which doubled as trials for the World Championships in Beijing, Harrison decided to concentrate on the 100 m hurdles only; she set a personal all-conditions best of 12.46w in the heats and ran a wind-legal 12.56 in the final, placing a close second to 2008 Olympic Champion Dawn Harper-Nelson and qualifying for the American team. The Americans were heavy favorites for the world championships, but underperformed; Harrison had a false start in the semi-finals and was disqualified.

Harrison opened her 2016 indoor season winning the 60 metres hurdles in Lexington, Kentucky, Karlsruhe, Germany and Glasgow in 7.92. In a tightly competed race at the 2016 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships, Harrison took second place by one hundredth of a second to Brianna Rollins, setting a personal record of 7.77 seconds and moving herself into 13th place on the all-time lists. At the 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships one week later, Harrison led the qualifying with 7.81 seconds. However, in the final she hit the first hurdle heavily and never recovered, ending in eighth while Nia Ali (the least favoured American) took the title.

She began the outdoor season in April with the fastest opener recorded by a hurdler, 12.36 seconds, to go up to ninth on the all-time lists. A run of 12.42 followed at the start of May. Then at the Prefontaine Classic in late May she perfectly cleared all the hurdles and won in a time of 12.24 seconds – the second fastest time in history after Yordanka Donkova’s world record of 12.21 from 1988.[18] She was favored to win the 100 m hurdles at the 2016 United States Olympic Trials in early July, but only placed sixth in 12.62 and missed qualifying for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro; the three spots on the American Olympic team went to Rollins, Kristi Castlin and Ali.

Harrison broke the 100 m world record on July 22, 2016 at the London Müller Anniversary Games, running 12.20 (+0.3 m/s) to lower Donkova’s mark by one one-hundredth of a second; Rollins, Castlin and Ali placed second, third and fourth in the race. The trackside clock in the record race initially stopped at 12.58, the unadjusted time of runner-up Rollins, as Harrison ducked under the timing beam at the finish line.

Kendra Harrison | PHOTO CREDIT: RYAN PIERSE

Jordan Windle USA Champion Diver

by DianaNloves | Olympians

Jordan was born in Sihanoukville, Cambodia on November 13, 1998. At the age of one, he was abandoned and placed in the Women and Children’s Vocational Center at Chom Chao. The nannies in the orphanage named him Pisey, which translates to “little darling” in English. When he was eighteen months old, he was adopted by Jerry Windle, a single gay man.

Career
When he was seven years old, Jerry enrolled Jordan in the Fort Lauderdale Aquatics Fun Camp in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he was noticed by diving coach Tim O’Brien, son of Ron O’Brien, who coached four-time Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis. O’Brien told Jerry that if he enrolled Jordan into a diving program, he would one day be a National Champion and potentially an Olympian. Jordan’s first diving coach was Evan Linette, a former national champion diver. Jordan trained for four years in Fort Lauderdale with Evan and Dave Burgering, 1980 Olympic Team Member, and Olympic diving Coach. Jordan won his first junior national title at nine years old and has been referred to as “Little Louganis” ever since. Jordan appeared in the Disney Channel’s “Getcha Head in the Game” when he was ten.

The family then moved to the USA Diving National Training Center in Indianapolis, Indiana, where Jordan trained and qualified to compete at the Olympic Team Trials at age 13. Jordan was named the Grand Marshall of the 2012 Indianapolis Pride Parade Indy Pride Festival. Following the 2012 Olympics, Jordan began training at Duke University under coach Nunzio Esposto before being recruited to dive for the University of Texas and coached by Olympian and Olympic Coach Matt Scoggin. Windle was raised in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Jordan along with his father, Jerry co-authored the illustrated children’s book An Orphan No More:The True Story of a Boy: Chapter One. The book’s foreword was written by 4-Time Olympic Gold Medalist Greg Louganis.

Windle dives collegiately for the Texas Longhorns. He was the 2019 NCAA Champion in the men’s platform event and 2021 NCAA Champion in the men’s 1 meter event.[8] He is also a seven-time U.S. Senior National Champion and six time U.S. Junior National Diving Champion. He also holds the NCAA Div 1 records for both the 3m springboard and the platform events. He is the only diver to win Diver of the Year four years in a row in the Big 12 Conference. In 2012 Windle was at the time the youngest person ever to qualify for the U.S. Olympic diving trials.

Windle is a member of the 2021 U.S. Olympic Team representing the United States at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo in the men’s 10 metres platform event. He is the first diver of Cambodian descent to compete in the Olympics.

Vul Moldauer Journey to the Olympics

by DianaNloves | Olympians

Vul Moldauer was adopted from South Korea as a baby boy. And his journey wasn’t easy. When he was adopted, his parents in Colorado were told he would have a lifetime of medical issues having been born prematurely to a chemically dependent mom.

Not only is Moldauer a valued member of the men’s gymnastics team during these Olympic games, but he has proven to be an inspiration to the Asian-American community given the rise in anti-Asian sentiment during the pandemic. Moldauer is quoted saying—

I couldn’t be more blessed. What if I didn’t get adopted? Or what if I didn’t do gymnastics? What would my life look like?

Paige McPherson Olympian Nicknamed McFierce

by DianaNloves | Olympians

McPherson is the only Taekwondo competitor in U.S. history to make it to the Olympics three times.

Nicknamed “McFierce,” McPherson was born in Abilene, Texas, where she was placed for adoption when she was four days old.

Brittney Reese Olympian Track Star

by DianaNloves | Olympians

Brittney Reese Olympian Track Star! Reese has proven to be one of the greatest Track & Field athletes in American history, officially punching her fourth ticket to the Olympic Games this month. Only two women in history have jumped farther than Reese, including Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

Brittney Reese is actually not adopted. She’s an adoptive mom. She adopted her son, Alex, when he was 8 years old.

She is a superhero Mom and winning a silver medal in long jump.