In March, Lolo Jones won the gold medal in the 60-meter hurdles in the IAAF Indoor World Championships in Spain.

It was her first gold in international competition — in fact, her first medal.

And yet, the reality of an Olympic year is that an indoor medal, even gold, quickly gets reduced to a footnote.

The 25-year-old LSU grad with a degree in economics understands that. Understands that she’s in her prime now; not just done with her college career, as she was in 2004, when she clipped the ninth hurdle in her semifinal heat in the Olympic Trials and fell over the 10th, and didn’t advance in the 100- meter hurdles.