“It was jaw-dropping,” admitted his great rival McCoy.
“We just saw each other [while waiting for the next heat] And said, ‘Well, we know who’s going to win. Who is going to get the silver?”
But Jackson admitted to having ‘absolutely no preparation’ for the second round.
“It was just the second round,” Jackson says. “They’ve all seen what I can do so I don’t get upset.
His coach, Arnold, warned him of the consequences.
Jackson finished second in a messy race but, after hitting the fifth hurdle, tore his oblique muscle on his left side – a key muscle in lifting your leg up to the hurdle.
This proved costly and he only finished seventh in the final.
“If someone is better than you, you accept it,” Jackson says. “But I was the best.
“You can’t predict the depth of depression you go into.
“It’s everything in your life – everything. You realize you’ll never have this time again. You go from hero to zero in the blink of an eye.
“It took a whole year to finish.”
He faced accusations that he was a ‘choker’ and there was even an ad that featured a bottle on a set of obstacles, suggesting that Jackson couldn’t handle the big moments. .