BEIJING - Lolo Jones was supposed to take the Olympic 100-meter hurdles title. Other entrants knew it.

Jones knew it. Even told herself so right before the start, mouthing, “I can win this race,” when she was introduced to the crowd.

And Jones was right: She could have won, and she was about to - not just holding a lead but adding to it when she came to the ninth of 10 hurdles Tuesday night.

Alas, the American's foot slammed into that barrier instead of clearing it, and the next thing Jones knew, she was struggling to keep her balance rather than smoothly sailing across the finish line.

Jones dropped from first to seventh behind unlikely champion Dawn Harper of the United States, then dropped to her knees in despair, folding her body to the track and resting her head on her hands. There she stayed, all alone, for a few minutes.

“You hit a hurdle about twice a year where it affects your race,” said Jones, who came in with the year's best time and an indoor world championship.

“It's just a shame that it happened on the biggest race of my life.”

Sanya Richards also was supposed to wear a gold medal for the U.S.

Everyone in the Bird's Nest knew that when she was touted over the PA system before the 400-meter final as

“No. 1 in the world the last three years.”

Richards was also about to win - taking a lead into the final 80 meters.

That's when she began slowing and was passed, not once, but twice.

Richards blamed her fade on a tightening right hamstring, and although she still wound up with a bronze behind Britain's Christine Ohuruogu and Jamaica's Shericka Williams, she hardly looked thrilled up on that podium, sighing after receiving her flowers.

Minutes later, she was sobbing into a cell phone, sitting on the floor in a hallway beneath the stands.

Earlier this month, at U.S. training camp in Dalian, China, Richards and her personal coach, Clyde Hart, were talking about how the splotches on her legs - a final remnant of a rare disease that has hobbled her - were finally fading.

Richards figured there'd be no better sign she was all the way back than an Olympic title.

“I knew that gold was mine,” she said. “I was already getting up and elated coming off the turn, because I know how my races usually go. I just had a really tough break on that one.”

Tough breaks came twice Tuesday, for Richards and for Jones, in an Olympic track and field meet in which little has gone according to plan for the United States.

Instead, victories on this night seemed to be reserved for athletes who barely made it to the Summer Games.

Harper, for example, grabbed the last spot at the U.S. Olympic trials by 0.007 second.

On the biggest stage of all for her sport, she was good enough for gold, windmilling both arms as she finished in 12.54 seconds.