It’s easy to see why emerging NCAA track star Lana Mims has Olympic aspirations.

The University of Missouri senior is the daughter of legendary four-time Olympian Madeline Manning Mims, the younger sister of former University of Oklahoma triple-jump champion John Jackson, and has dreamed of competing on the world’s greatest stage since she was a kid. But it was a dream that appeared destined to fall by the wayside, snuffed out by unexpected adversity, after Mims came to Mizzou in the fall of 2006.