FORT COLLINS — Their words were encouraging, but she heard doubt hiding in the voices of the well-meaning folks who offered them. And why wouldn’t there be at least a twinge of skepticism? What Janay DeLoach was trying to pull off was ridiculously difficult, and time was running out.
The from Fort Collins was learning how to jump all over again. She had become one of the best in the world by jumping off her left foot, but because of two surgeries on her left ankle in 2014, she had to learn to jump off her right. Like a southpaw trying to learn how to pitch with his right arm.
Then, two months before last month’s U.S. championships that would determine the composition of this year’s world championships team, DeLoach found out that a quad muscle in her right leg was 50 percent torn. Now the odds really were against her.
“I was hearing a lot of, ‘You can do it,’ patting me on the back, but the lack of faith and conviction in what they were saying was evident,” said DeLoach, and it was at this point in telling her story that she teared up with emotion. People feared she might be finished as an athlete.
“I overcame all of that because I didn’t let them tear me down. I knew a lot of people lost hope in me. I knew a lot of people were like, ‘You had a good run.’ I had to deal with people pretending to have faith in me. I knew I had it in me, it just was hard to battle that.”
But incredibly, she made the team for the world championships that will be held in Beijing (Aug. 22-30) by finishing third at the U.S. championships on June 27 with a jump of 22 feet, 9¾ inches. That was 2½ inches farther than the jump that won her an Olympic medal.
Given what the has been through the past two years, making the world championships team was more gratifying than making the Olympic team three years ago. It also put her squarely back in the mix for next summer’s Olympics.
“I was humbled, really humbled by knowing that I wasn’t the best anymore, I couldn’t compete, I was injured, in a sense a nobody,” said DeLoach, 29. “If you’re not doing anything, you’re not worth a dang, you’re not on anyone’s radar, no one’s afraid of you. Everyone forgot. ‘She used to be good.’ “
“A horrible year”
The trouble started at the 2013 U.S. championships when she rolled her left ankle planting her second jump. She couldn’t jump again in that meet but won the competition because her first jump was the best of the day, and it put her on the 2013 world championships team.
Initially the injury was thought to be a bad sprain. Jumping off her right leg at the world championships in Moscow, she went 21 feet, 7¼ inches, which placed her 11th — but as the top American.
After the world championships, an MRI showed that it wasn’t just a bad sprain — her tibia and fibula had crushed part of the talus bone in her ankle.
She competed indoors in 2014, then had surgery that April. She rushed back to compete outdoors but shut down her season in June. She had a second surgery last September.
“It was a horrible year,” said DeLoach, who also competes in the 100-meter hurdles. “I didn’t run well, I didn’t jump well. It was just a disaster and very discouraging.”
After the second surgery, she was on crutches for three months. Only this past February was she able to begin jogging on an AlterG treadmill, which uses air pressure in a chamber around the user to produce an anti-gravity effect. She made dozens of trips from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs to use the AlterG at the Olympic Training Center, first running at 10 percent of body weight, then 20 percent, then 30.
“My leg was dinky,” DeLoach said. “It looked like I didn’t feed it. It was just so small because I was nonweight-bearing for so long. My quad shrunk, hamstring shrunk, calf shrunk. All the stability muscles around the ankle diminished to nothing. It was a poor little feeble guy down there.”
Then in mid-April, a new problem arose: the tear in her right quad, which probably was caused by overcompensating for the weak left leg. Now even DeLoach began to doubt. She was supposed to be training to make the world championships, and she had two months, but she was told to stay off that leg for a month.
“These last two years have been mind-blowing,” DeLoach said. “And when I tore my quad, I had to think about it: Can I do this? Am I going to be able to come back? I had to think to myself: Do I feel like I’m done? Do I feel like this is over for me, or do I feel like if I get healthy I can do it?”
Right way to shine
She found comfort in her church, her pastor.
“I was holding on,” DeLoach said. “Maybe by a thread, but I was holding on.”
She wasn’t able to train normally again until the first week of June. That weekend she jumped 20 feet, 4½ inches at a meet in California. Not only did the leg hold up, she felt good mechanically jumping off her right foot for the first time.
“It was the first time I was like, ‘There it is, that’s what I’ve been trying to get all of this time,’ ” DeLoach said. “It was like a light bulb, ‘Yes!’ My body just figured it out suddenly.”
At the U.S. championships, she had a good feeling about her chances. Before the competition she felt good, bouncy, had “pop” in her legs. On her first jump she went 21 feet, 8¼ inches — a right-legged personal best. Two jumps later she jumped onto the world championships team.
“I just felt blessed, like, ‘God really does have a plan for me,’ ” DeLoach said.
Now she is “officially” a right-footed jumper.
“If it’s not broke,” she said, “don’t fix it.”
John Meyer: jmeyer@denverpost.com or twitter.com/johnmeyer
