Virginia's Yvette Lewis Qualifies for 2016 Rio Summer Olympic Hurdles

With a 12.98 clocking in the women's 100-meter hurdles at the recent World Challenge in Beijing, China, Newport News' Yvette Lewis qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Lewis, who has competed for Panama since 2012, took advantage of the opportunity to qualify by besting a standard of 13.00 seconds. While the American team is selected by way of the first three places at the Trials, the qualifying standard was designed to allow smaller countries the opportunity for athletes to make the Olympiad. While Lewis' time was 63 hundredths of a second off of this year's world leading 12.35 time by the USA's Jasmine Stowers, it is also slower than her own best of 12.67, which was set in Lahti, Finland two years ago.

In fact, at 30, Lewis may be arguably the greatest female track athlete ever to have not yet made the Olympics. Prior to concentrating on hurdling, the Menchville High (VA) graduate was a two-time NCAA champ for Hampton University in the triple jump. Her best jump of roughly 45 feet, 5 inches is a world class mark. In fact, Lewis is certainly the only female athlete to combine for both a sub-12.70 time in the 100 hurdles and over 45 feet in the triple jump, a claim that is not argued by several track experts, such as Trinidad and Tobago Olympic track legend, and now NBC sports commentator, Ato Boldon.

Unfortunately, the triple jump is not a premier competition in women's track, so Lewis hung up the jumping spikes several years ago to concentrate on the 100 hurdles, which is more of a glamour event with the likes of Lolo Jones, Dawn Harper-Nelson, and fellow Virginians Queen Harrison and former teammate and 2012 Olympic bronze medalist Kellie Wells in the mix of competition.

However, the glut of star power, now boosted further by Stowers and Brianna Rollins, has now caused the event to be America's strongest event, on the men's or women's side.

In 2012, Harper-Nelson (silver), Wells and Jones represented America as the three representatives in the hurdles at the London Olympics. In a show of incredible athletic ability, and after missing the chance to qualify for the team in the hurdles, Lewis quickly entered in the Trials heptathlon, and won two of the seven individual events on her way to an eighth place finish.