Lolo Jones: Star Runner Will Be America's Fan Favorite at 2012 Olympics

America loves a story of redemption. We love it when the underdogs triumph over hardship after hardship in order to achieve the ultimate dream; it means more when it happens to someone who had to work for it. 

Lolo Jones personifies that rhetoric of redemption, which is exactly why she'll end up being the athlete America pulls the hardest for in London this summer.

Jones, now 29, was so close to achieving her dream at the 2008 Games when she was the favorite to win the 100-meter hurdles. In fact, the gold medal was so close in sight that she lost sight of the hurdle right in front of her—and tripped over it. Her gold medal dreams were gone, and she finished in a devastating seventh place.

Those Olympic dreams were over until now.

There are so many reasons why Jones shouldn't have qualified for this summer's Olympics. There were so many roadblocks along the way. She endured  surgery in August 2011 in order to repair a tethered spinal cord, according to the Sacramento Bee. After that, there were hamstring injuries. When she conquered those, there was the immense doubt that followed her to the trials, and the pressure that accompanied them. 

And then, in Saturday's 100-meter hurdles, she finished in 12.86 seconds, right behind Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells. Third place was good enough this time around, and now Jones will be headed to London for a crack at redemption.

Jones wasn't deaf to all of the doubts that followed her to the Olympic trials; in fact, she heard them loud and clear, and according to USA Today, she said that there was so much pressure that she had her sports psychologist, her pastor and her mom on speed dial all weekend. After she qualified, she told the Sacramento Bee:

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It feels amazing. So many road blocks and people counting me out, but I just kept overcoming. I'm thrilled and honored to represent everybody out there fighting for a dream.

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Jones, after all, is the perfect representation of America's dreams of winning a gold—and she's widely regarded as the US's best shot in the hurdles, too. On top of that, she's one of the country's most recognizable faces overall—she's someone who can turn even the most casual Olympic observer into a fan—and her story is so easy to get behind. It's difficult not to root for Lolo.

Jones is the kind of athlete that fans can get truly excited about, and what makes it even better is that she's worth the excitement. Even she is well-aware of just how good her story is. She told the Examiner's Samantha Chang:

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Man, I was so close to that gold, I tasted it. Everywhere I've gone the last four years, people say, "Oh, you're that girl who messed up." I no longer want that reputation.

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Jones isn't just another athlete chasing another world record, another gold, another claim to fame. She's the athlete who hasn't been able to get there but still wants it more desperately than anyone else.

There's nothing complacent or cocky about it; she just wants to give her story the perfect ending, and it's the perfect ending to root for.