July 1, 2009

LOS ANGELES – This past weekend Lashinda Demus (LD) won the USA Championship 400m hurdle title, posting the world’s best time, after falling from the spotlight a year ago when she failed to make 2008 USA Olympic team by finishing fourth. Demus talks below about her race at USAs, what she likes to talk about prior to the race, who the other three Gamecocks are on the USA World team, her favorite hurdle and of course the two little men who surprised her by changing her life forever: her two-year-old twins: Duaine and Dontay.

Find her fan page on Facebook.com at: Lashinda Demus’ Road to Gold: London 2012 and on Twitter.com@LashindaDemus.

A lot has changed with you in the last year and we’ll talk about that, but let’s talk about this past weekend first. Right now you stand on top of the 400m hurdles world with the two fastest times in the world; and you just added a USA title to your hardware. You lived in Columbia for seven years, attending University of South Carolina before turning professional when you made the Olympic team in 2004, and you moved back to the Los Angeles last fall. What are the reasons you felt it was time to move back to LA?

LD: I moved back the day after the election day in 2008 (November, 2008).

I didn’t want to leave Columbia. I had been there almost eight years and I really liked it there. It was my comfort zone. But I had no family there and when it came time for me to do something, I thought we had to move. Especially with my husband as my agent, we really had to get closer to family because we needed help. My husband and I aren’t just the two of us – we have two toddler twins that we have to think about every day as well. I knew it was important for us to move closer to family and they all live in California.

I actually enjoy being home. I am glad I am near family. I like being in the good weather. I like California – I missed it when I was gone.

You won the 400m hurdles title this past weekend at the USA Championships in Oregon. Congratulations. Did you have a time in mind you wanted to run? It looked like standing-room only in Oregon over the weekend.

LD: I did. I wanted to run 53 low, but once I felt the wind and I knew it would be every day, I wasn’t going for a time with the weather conditions. The crowd in Oregon is like a European crowd. They cheer for you whether they like you or not. They really pack the fans in the stadium at Oregon.

I had my crew there. My parents, Yolanda and Duaine Demus; my husband, Jamel Mayrant; and of course our twins: Duaine and Dontay. My mom is coaching me now. I have known Jamel since 2002 (was friends with one of her high school friends). He ran at Arizona State and we started dating in 2003. Long distance romance – always back and forth.

You ran a 53.78 to win the USA title in the 400m hurdles. You broke a 16-year-old stadium set by one of your heroes, Sandra Farmer-Patrick, in 1993 when she ran a 53.96 at Heyward Field; and it is also the fastest time in the world this year. Take us through your race in the finals. What was your plan?

LD: My mom, who coaches me, since the wind was heavy on the backstretch she wanted me to get out hard on the first three hurdles to get the momentum going to keep me floating down the back stretch with the win against me. And then on the second curve she told me to start building, not sprinting, but building to get ready for the sprint, which is after the seventh hurdle. And then bring it what I had at the end.

I did exactly as she instructed me to do. It wasn’t a clean race because I hit about four hurdles and my knees are all swollen and beat up now. It was cool because I followed the plan, but it could have been a lot cleaner.

What can you do to clean up your race?

LD: Not hit hurdles.

What can do to stop hitting hurdles? Do you practice that?

LD: It’s a certain way you have to go over the hurdles. It’s a certain way you have to go over the hurdles with your trail leg and the way your toe points. If I point my toe up and not down, my knee will come over correctly.

I do practice that. Sometimes when I get tired, I get lazy. When you are tired in practice, sometimes you don’t practice everything you need to. That is something I drill on and on in practice.

What’s next? How many races do you want to run prior to worlds in Berlin?

LD: I don’t know yet. I know I am going to run in two or three European meets in the 400m hurdles. I was trying to get in some flat 400m hurdle races, but a lot of the meets don’t have open lanes. Because it’s a world championship year, they want to fill the lanes with people who are going to run that event at worlds.

I want to run about three races before the World Championships in Berlin. I am not sure when the Worlds are. Maybe August 15th. I am not sure (laughs).

This is the first time your mom has coached a professional at the USA Championships – was she nervous?

LD: My mom is my coach. She was nervous because a lot of people thought it was a bad idea for her to coach me. They don’t know she ran track professionally and she knows a lot about coaching, she just hasn’t coached a professional before. I trusted her. She had some doubts about herself because a lot of people talked down on her. She was nervous because she wanted me to do well. It took a lift off her shoulders when I won so she is happy now.

Was she nervous as a coach or a mother?

LD: Oh, for sure as a coach. I call her Mom at practice, but she is the coach and I treat her with that kind of respect. When she is giving me instruction, I make sure I look and nod my head and stuff. I call her Coach, MC (Mother Coach) and when she is getting really rough or on my nerves, Serg.

Your husband, Jamel, was down there in the warm-up area with you prior to your race in the finals. Does he get nervous?

LD: He was on my neck! He kept saying `Are you ok?’, `You gotta run fast!’, `Go out there and win this!’ and a few other things. He gets nervous and I can tell. He said he might have to stay home or in the hotel because he gets too nervous when I get ready to run. He said he felt like he was going to throw up in the past.

He told me the night before he worked to calm himself down because he knew I was ready. I asked him `How do you have to calm yourself down!? I am the one who has to run!’ I don’t understand that, but I know he wants me to do well (laughing).

Does it calm you down a little bit or more nervous when he is nervous like that?

LD: No, that makes me more nervous. I like to stay really calm before my race. I like to be normal before a race. I like people to talk to me about normal stuff. That’s what I got my mom into doing before the races now. I talk to her about what I want to eat, food – not the race. She might talk about the race, but she won’t bring it up a lot. We talk about clothes, stuff like that. When I get on the track I have time to think about my race and worry about that. I don’t want to overwhelm myself when I am waiting for my race with a lot of `Are you ready?!’.

In the past you have said you have been more nervous at the Trials than Worlds. Why?

LD: Anything can happen at the Trials (USA Championships) and you don’t want those things to happen because there are only three slots for each event. When you make the World team, you are on the team so you don’t think about making mistakes. You just go to Worlds thinking `Ok, let’s just go for a medal now’. It’s a lot of pressure to get on the team. That’s the hard part. Running at the Worlds in easier.

Who do you expect your competition to be in Berlin?

LD: I have always said, I recently told my mom, nothing in my life has come easy. I have been training since I was little and I have always trained hard. I wasn’t one of those people who had talent and just ran. I knew I had talent, but I trained hard because I one of those people who didn’t want to get beat. In school I was one of those people who had to study really hard or I’d get in trouble. I never ran a race with a slow time and won.

I expect this race (the finals at Worlds) will be fast and I will have to work for it. History shows I don’t get anything easy.

The competition will be tough. Jamaican Melaine Walker. Of course Tiffany Williams and Sheena Tosta from the USA. Jana Pittman from Australia. There are quite a few people, but those are the top ones.

The University of South Carolina has won a number of medals at the last three Olympics and also at the World Championships. This year the Gamecocks are standing tall as South Carolina has four of the 12 hurdlers on the USA team. One third of the USA hurdlers came through University of South Carolina! What do you attribute that to? A sophomore at USC: Johnny Dutch (runner-up in the 400m hurdles) and three professionals: Terrence Trammell (110m hurdles runner-up), Tiffany Williams (400m hurdles, third place) and you. You, Terrence and Tiffany don’t train in Columbia anymore.

LD: The hurdlers program at South Carolina has always been very good. You have to give a lot of credit to Coach Frye. He is a good coach. He has produced a lot of hurdlers. Every year we have a really good group of Gamecocks going to some type of championship (worlds, Olympics). It doesn’t surprise me. I am proud.

You met Johnny Dutch for the first time in Oregon, the Gamecocks’ rising junior (finishing his sophomore year), who finished as the runner-up at USAs in the 400m hurdles and made the world team. What are your impressions of him?

LD: I watched him on TV during the 2009 NCAA Championships and I thought `Wow, this kid is really good’. He is a really good hurdler and is doing a great job.

I walked up to him at USAs, introduced myself and congratulated him. I was happy he did so well and has had such success at South Carolina.

He played around with me. I touched him on the arm and he said `Oh, thanks for that, I need the luck’ and I said `You don’t need the luck. You don’t need luck when you are that good.’ Luck is for people that don’t have it and he has it.

He is a technical and speed hurdler – he is all around. You can’t put your finger on it – he is just that good and that talented. He is a lot like Batman (Bershawn Jackson).

You made the Olympic team as a junior in 2004. Johnny Dutch is making the World Championship team as a sophomore. How exciting was it for you to be a junior at the Olympics in 2004? Do you have any advice for him?

LD: I was just excited to make the team. I was mad at the Trials that I lost, but when I snapped out of it and figured out I had made the team, I was like `Wait! I am on the Olympic team!’. I had a long season and the Olympics didn’t go that well after I went there with some high hopes. I put more pressure on myself than anyone else.

Johnny is capable of medaling this year. Honestly all of us from South Carolina (Trammell, Williams, Dutch and herself) have a real chance to medal this year. I hope he won’t put pressure on himself and just run.

Do you remember winning the silver in 2005? After that race if someone told you would have twins in the next two years – what would you have said?

LD: I would have laughed. I would have laughed and called them crazy. I had a plan and that certainly wasn’t part of the plan. I love being a mom and having kids. I am glad I did it early, but that was not part of the plan.

In 2005 you win the silver, in 2006 you were the top-ranked hurdler in the world. In 2007 you were the favorite to win the title at the World Championships then you got pregnant prior to the season? How long were you able to train pregnant and how soon did you start training after you had them by cesarean?

LD: I tried to train for about three weeks. I knew almost immediately I was pregnant because I felt the difference. I tried to train, but I was so sick the first four months so I didn’t do any training after those first couple of weeks.

I had the twins in June of 2007 and about three weeks later I started walking. The fourth week I started trotting and so on. I did start back kind of early.

Talk about the twins. Who are they like? Do they know you run? Do they care?

LD: My mom says they are like me. She said I was stubborn and a mean little baby. They are like me. My husband I don’t know how he was as a child, but he does say he got into everything as a child and they certainly do that.

They know I run, but they don’t care. Around the house they practice running. They get down in the blocks, take off and run a lot. They don’t care. It is their world and we just little pebbles in it that they kick around.

OK, back to some track. What is your favorite hurdle?

LD: I would say the first hurdle is my favorite hurdle. Every race I go to that same hurdle with the same steps, same speed – same consistency so I know that for sure that I am getting over that hurdle.

I think about what hurdles I know I can get over without trying to switch my steps. Switching steps is something I have really worked on this year. This year I am starting to feel more comfortable switching legs. I did a lot practice. If you are right-handed, it’s like trying to write with your left hand. It feels that awkward and weird. You have to really do it so much so it doesn’t feel that much different. You have to do it so you feel comfortable enough to do it, but it never really is comfortable.

How about them Gamecocks?! Let’s talk about some University of South Carolina glory days for you in college. You were on the school’s first and only NCAA Championship team in 2002 as a freshman. Did you think as a freshman `this is fun and we’ll do it every year’?

LD: I really thought we would win every year. I think we were one of the best teams of all time. I tell everyone all the time college was so fun. It was one of the greatest things ever. We were the best team, we all worked hard and we all wanted the same thing. Of course things happened differently.

To name just a few on that team in 2002: South Carolina had Aleen Bailey, who has won a gold medal with Jamaica; the Barber twins and Demetria Washington, who have all won medals at the World Championships; and of course you and Tiffany Williams – who are both still going strong in the 400m hurdles. What was practice like?

LD: People always ask me how our training sessions went. I tell them kind of like a track meet. We had so many competitive people who really wanted to be the best. When you have so many people like that, you go at each other’s throat in practice with all respect to each other. We really went at each other in practice because we all wanted to be the best. It was great!

What is your favorite part of being a track athlete?

LD: Traveling around the world because few people do that. I love that my job is to practice three-four hours a day and then I am done. I make my own hours and I love that.

What is your best race ever? And what’s your worst race ever?

LD: I hope I haven’t had my best race ever. I haven’t reached that. I have come close. In 2004 at the Olympics Trials I was on my way to that, but I tripped and hit the hurdles.

My worst race ever was for sure the Olympics Trials in 2008 – the finals, when I finished fourth and didn’t make the team. It was real hard to get over not making it. I had to decide to watch the Olympics because I was depressed and it was so hard not making the team. But, once this season started I got over it and if I wasn’t training well or doing something my mom wanted me to do – I would go back into that mode of I don’t have it. I am not ready. I don’t have it. But she kept me going and do did my husband. It’s been really tough.

You have gotten a lot of really strong support in the last few months. How good does that feel?

LD: I didn’t know that so many people watched and knew me. I didn’t just didn’t know. That really cheered me up. If you don’t have confidence in yourself and believe in yourself, then who will? If other people have more confidence than you do, than that’s a problem. I moved forward with that thinking and thanking people for having confidence in me by watching and supporting me.

Anybody you want to give a shout-out to?

LD: I just really want to give credit to my staff: my family, my mom and of course my husband. My mom deserves so much credit – she has done a fantastic job. My husband is the best supporter in the world. They are really good and mean so much to me.

I also want to thank the people who have supported me through it all. It means a lot.