Devers, Dragila reach Olympics

Veterans qualify in 100 hurdles, pole vault

? Veterans Gail Devers and Stacy Dragila were the stars on the last day of a U.S. Olympic track and field trials that mostly had been a showcase for teenagers, collegians and other first-time Olympians.

Devers, 37, became just the third U.S. track and field athlete — joining Carl Lewis and Willye White — to make her fifth Olympic team, winning the 100-meter hurdles by less than the length of her trademark fingernails.

“I try to look at it as though it’s my first time,” said Devers, who has been at every Summer Olympics since 1988.

Devers edged Joanna Hayes in a photo finish. Devers, who joked to the crowd that “it feels like 50 years” that she has been competing, was timed in 12.547 seconds and Hayes in 12.549.

Dragila, 33, the defending Olympic champion, won the women’s pole vault, but failed in three attempts to break the world record. She missed at 16 feet, 1/2-inch, which would have topped Svetlana Feofanova’s mark of 16 feet set earlier this month.

Allyson Felix, 18, won the women’s 200 meters, and Muna Lee, 22, was second. Shawn Crawford, 26, won the men’s 200, and Justin Gatlin, 22, was second.

Jamie Nieto won the men’s high jump, and 41-year-old Teresa Vaill won the women’s 20-kilometer walk. Torri Edwards, who faces a two-year ban if found guilty of using a banned stimulant, took the third spot in the women’s 200. She also qualified for the Athens Games by placing second in the 100.