Feb 4, 2007 3 min read

NEW YORK (AP) – Gail Devers still can outrun women a generation younger. The 40-year-old Devers defeated a top field of hurdlers at the Millrose Games, and makes it clear she has no intention right now of retiring. But that doesn’t mean she plans to come back full-time to the sport in which she has starred since the 1980s. She has more important things to deal with now.

“I have absolutely no plans. I was doing ballet with my daughter earlier today in her little tutu, so I’ll go back and do that,” she said.

“This is the one race I said I would run, the 100th Millrose Games.”

Devers, 19 months removed from giving birth to daughter Karsen, was the surprise winner Friday night in the 60-meter hurdles.

She edged 2004 Olympic champion Joanna Hayes and defeated a field that also included Devers’ student, Danielle Carruthers, and former world champion Perdita Felicien.

“I wanted to come back at 40 and do something great for my fans, for the people who supported me having a baby, saying please don’t retire,” Devers said after winning in 7.86 seconds, the best time in the world this season. “I say 40 is the new 20.”

Devers’ time was 0.12 off the U.S. record she set in 2003. The three-time world champion now also has won three Millrose hurdles titles.

Hayes was second in 7.91 and Carruthers third in 7.94.

“Gail is amazing. We didn’t expect her to win that race,” Hayes said. “She got out great. Just from that first step out, she was in complete control.”

Devers raced one time in 2006, at the Millrose Games, finishing fourth less than eight months after giving birth.

She said she had a relatively easy pregnancy, gaining 17 pounds and never having morning sickness, but didn’t resume jogging until six months after delivering by Caesarean section.

“She’s as strong as ever,” Carruthers said. “I think the baby has made her stronger than she was before.”

Such a comeback is nothing new to Devers, who had a standout career at UCLA in the late 1980s but was sidelined in 1989 and 1990 because of Graves Disease, a thyroid abnormality that caused her feet to swell so much she was within days of having them amputated.

Devers went on to win gold medals in the 100 meters at the 1992 and 1996 Olympics, and captured world championship titles in the 100-meter hurdles in 1993, 1995 and 1999.

She dominated women’s hurdles throughout the 1990s, though she never has won a medal in an Olympic hurdles event.

She hit the last hurdle while leading the 1992 Olympic final in Barcelona, and crawled across the finish line in fifth place. In 1996, she missed an Olympic medal by a hundredth of a second in Atlanta.

So what’s next? Will she try to make her sixth Olympic team for the 2008 Beijing Games? Or will she move on to the masters circuit with other 40-and-older athletes? Her time Friday was nearly a second better than the masters world record for the women’s 60 hurdles.

“I’m day to day, year by year,” she said.

“At 40, I don’t care how old I am, my goal is to win the race. I’m willing to pull every muscle in my body to get to that finish.”