How Charlotte’s Anna Cockrell overcame complicated start to make 400 hurdles final at Paris

A hand up put her Olympic medal dreams at risk Tuesday, but Anna Cockrell held firm to her ground. Literally.

The Charlotte native didn’t have smooth sailing like she did in her prelims race on Sunday, but she survived a quirky start to her semifinal heat race to advance to the 400-meter hurdle finals at the Paris Olympic Games.

Cockrell’s race started with her hand in the air, since she wasn’t set when the official said “set.”

The starter fired his gun to begin the race, before firing it again to signal a false start. Officials gave Cockrell a green card, allowing her to race, but it still added an extra component to an already pressure-packed advance-or-go-home lap around the track.

“My hands straight up weren’t on the ground,” Cockrell said of the pre-race situation. “I just raised my hand — I thought I was within my rights to do that. There was kind of a discussion about what was going on. I have a lot of respect for the officials out there. There’s a lot going on — I appreciate a big crowd. The crowd is really excited so I know that there was a lot of discussion that had to happen but as far as I was concerned, I wasn’t ready to come up to set. We ran the race and we’re going to the final so period.”

Cockrell still clocked in with a 52.90 in her semifinal run, second in her heat and her second sub-53-second race in her career. This year’s U.S. Olympic Trials silver medalist in the 400-meter hurdles continues to her quest to bring a medal from the 2024 Olympics Games home to North Carolina.

She has significantly dropped time since her Olympics debut in Tokyo and her satisfaction with her times between last Olympics and this time around has grown.

“It was alright,” Cockrell said after her run Tuesday. “I think I needed to make my moves bigger. I was like a 52.90, probably the second fastest time of my career, so I’m not going to cry about it, but I think I just need to be better at hurdles 5-7.”

She will join USA teammates Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone, the reigning Olympic champion, and Jasmine Jones in the 400 hurdle finals after posting the third fastest time out of 25 runners this evening. But regardless of the big stage that she’s on now, she will never forget about her roots and where she came from.

She lit up and couldn’t stop smiling when talking about Charlotte and her high school alma mater, Providence Day.

“Charlotte is my hometown,” she said. “My parents are there, I grew up there, and got a lot of people there. I know how much they root for me, how much this matters to them. I think my high school had a watch party for me so I’m really proud of that. I’m proud of where I come from and it means a lot to me to know that the entire city is rooting for me.”

With a World Ranking of No. 6, after finishing eighth in the Tokyo Olympics, Cockrell will look to bring another medal to the United States and win her first Olympic medal Thursday at 3:25 p.m.

Anna Laible is a student with UNC Media Hub, a program with the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, reporting from the Summer Olympics in Paris. Laible hosts the Speak Up Sports Podcast. Follow her journey covering her first Olympics on her Instagram (@anna_laible).