After 13 years of continuous training and competing Heptathlete Chari Hawkins was rewarded with a place on the 2024 Olympic Team, only to have her worst nightmare come true in Paris on day one of this grueling two-day, seven-event competition.
The Olympic Games-Paris 2024
PARIS, FRANCE: AUGUST 08: Chari Hawkins of the [+] United States, distraught after three failed attempts during the Women’s Heptathlon High Jump competition, is consoled by Katarina Johnson-Thompson of Great Britain during the Athletics Competition at the Stade de France during the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games on August 8th, 2024, in Paris, France.
Disaster
After the first of seven events, the 100-meter hurdles on August 8th Chari Hawkins had placed 5th in that event out of 22 athletes. When she moved on to the high jump, a strong event for Hawkins, disaster would strike. Hawkins chose to pass on the opening five heights and set the bar at 5.61 feet, a height she says she never missed.
“That was a bar that I can clear from a short approach—easily clear from a short approach. Actually, I had a great warm-up. I didn’t miss a bar in warm-ups,” Hawkins says.
2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials – Track & Field – Day 3
EUGENE, OREGON – JUNE 23: Chari Hawkins competes [+] in the women’s heptathlon high jump on Day Three 2024 U.S. Olympic Team Trials Track & Field at Hayward Field on June 23, 2024 in Eugene, Oregon.
That day would be different however. Inexplicably Hawkins would fail to clear the bar in three attempts, receiving a ‘no mark’ which meant she was awarded no points in the event.
Olympic Games Pressure
No amount of preparation necessarily prepares an elite athlete for the world stage of the Olympics. In Paris there was a lot of chaos on the track. Hawkins says she wasn’t informed of who was on deck or of her turn in the rotation of athletes.
“I thought I still had three bars to go and all of a sudden one of my teammates came up and said, ‘Chari you’re up. You gotta go girl, right now,’” Hawkins says.
In that moment of adrenaline, Hawkins would quickly take off her sweats and rush her approach.
“I think with all that extra adrenaline I overran my mark and hit the bar,” Hawkins says. “I hate telling that story because it makes it seem like it was this excuse. It was a very chaotic thing for me specifically. As an athlete, it is my job to make sure that I’m aware of everything that’s going on, and with such a chaotic environment that’s what happened … Even with chaos, I can clear that bar, I didn’t clear the bar, I had to face the consequences, which means you get a zero in the high jump.”
The Olympic Games-Paris 2024
PARIS, FRANCE: AUGUST 08: Chari Hawkins of the [+] United States, distraught after three failed attempts during the Women’s Heptathlon High Jump competition during the Athletics Competition at the Stade de France during the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games on August 8th, 2024, in Paris, France. (Photo by Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images) CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
So that was it. Hawkins Olympic dreams for a medal were crushed. Her Games were over. Thirteen years of work and sacrifice. From that point she would just be an Olympic spectator. Or would she?
I Can Do It With A Broken Heart
Hawkins would break down and sob in that dark moment. In fact she would share later that she sobbed for hours that day and the next. But she would also choose to go on and complete her remaining five events. And hearing the Taylor Swift song “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” in her head phones later helped her turn things around.
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FRANCE-US-CULTURE-MUSIC-CONCERT
US singer and songwriter Taylor Alison Swift, also [+] known as Taylor Swift, performs on stage at the Paris La Defense Arena as part of her The Eras Tour, in Nanterre, north-western France, on May 9, 2024.
people that came to watch me compete. …The 30 people that came they didn’t come so that they could watch me win a medal, they came to watch me compete at the Olympics and so I did it for them. For all of the people who were cheering me on from all over the world, they were so proud of me for being on the Olympic stage, I did it for them,” Hawkins says. “I had five more opportunities to be on an Olympic stage that dang near nobody gets.”
Finishing Day One
Hawkins would go on to the shot put and 200-meter sprint, the remaining events on day one and somehow carry on through her tears.
Chari Hawkins of the United States competes during [+] the women’s heptathlon shot put of Athletics at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France, Aug. 8, 2024. (Photo by Li Ming/Xinhua via Getty Images) XINHUA NEWS AGENCY VIA GETTY IMAGES
Then she somehow kept going the next day competing in the long jump, the javelin throw and finally the 800-meter run. She was candid later about those moments of struggle, recalling how she cried for hours during the Paris Olympics day two.
“I did all my crying. I got it all out. Everything is fine. I got a good night’s rest. I’m ready … I put one foot on that grass, and I started sobbing,” she said.
Athletics – Olympic Games Paris 2024: Day 14
PARIS, FRANCE – AUGUST 09: Chari Hawkins of Team [+] United States competes during the Women’s Heptathlon Long Jump on day fourteen of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Stade de France on August 09, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Michael
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