Читать книгу Indiana University Olympians. From Leroy Samse to Lilly King онлайн

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“Obviously, his basic athleticism helps him out a lot,” Skinner said.

Indiana would not have recruited Drouin if he did nothing but high jump. Huntoon said the fact Drouin wanted to do other events, and the Hoosiers wanted him to do so, influenced both sides. He eventually scored points at Big Ten meets in the hurdles and javelin.

As a freshman, he finished second in the 2009 Big Ten indoor meet but won every conference high jump title thereafter. He made a breakthrough that summer when he jumped a school record 7–5¼ in the Pan American Junior Championships at Port of Spain, Trinidad. When he swept NCAA indoor and outdoor titles in 2010 and repeated indoors in 2011 with a 7–7¾ jump, the 2012 Olympics seemed inevitable.

But in an outdoor meet at Starkville, Mississippi, he tore ligaments off his right (takeoff) foot. He looked up what the injury was on a website, and he despaired. His distress was eased by a call to his sister Jillian, who once finished third in the NCAA heptathlon for Syracuse University.