Sports
Legendary Sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce retires after 2024 Paris Olympics
BY KRISHNA MISTRY
The three-time Olympic gold medalist, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, will be retiring after the Paris 2024 Olympics. The Jamaican athlete began her international career in 2007 and ran her first hundred-meter race at an international level at the Jamaican National Senior Championships, where she placed fifth with a time of 11.31 seconds.
Although Fraser-Pryce did not qualify for the 2007 Osaka World Championship, she was selected as a reserve for Jamaica’s 4 x 100 meters relay team. This helped her to gain more exposure and experience on an international level.
Fraser-Pryce once again competed in the hundred-meter event at the Jamaican Olympic trial in 2008, where she had a breakthrough and came second place, with a time of 10.85 seconds. She then qualified for the 2008 Olympics, but many considered her inexperienced for the Olympics and tried to swap her with Campbell-Brown and petitioned with the Jamaican Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA). However, the JAAA upheld their rule of allowing the top three finishers onto the team.
At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Fraser-Pryce won gold in the one-hundred-meter event with a time of 10.78 seconds, making her the first Caribbean woman to win gold in the one-hundred-meter event in the Olympics.
The following year, Fraser-Pryce proved herself once again by capturing gold in the one-hundred-meter event at the 2009 Berlin World Championship with a time of 10.73 seconds, despite being injured earlier in the season and having an appendectomy. Later in June, she ran at the Jamaican Championships with a time of 10.88 seconds and received her first one-hundred-meter title.
In June 2010, Fraser-Pryce received a six-month suspension after a urine sample was taken at the Shanghai Diamond League, as she tested positive for oxycodone, which is banned as a narcotic. Fraser-Pryce insisted that the cause of her positive result was due to a medication her coach had provided for a toothache. She then resumed her competitions in early 2011 and her track results from 2010 were invalid.
In 2013, Fraser-Pryce showed her consistency as an athlete when she became the first woman to win the one-hundred-meter, two-hundred-meter, and the 4 x 100-meter events. She started the season early and within a few months, she secured wins in the Diamond League in Shanghai, Eugene, and Paris in the one-hundred-meter events and a victory in Doha in the two-hundred-meter event.
Fraser-Pryce received her third one-hundred-meter world title at the 2015 Beijing World Championships. In the finals, Fraser-Pryce got an amazing start and won with a time of 10.76 seconds, adding to her two titles from Berlin (2013) and Moscow (2008).
In 2017, Fraser-Pryce announced her pregnancy and was not able to defend her title at the 2017 World Championships held in London. She came back ready to win. Fraser-Pryce has won a total of eight Olympic medals, three being gold, four silver and one bronze, sixteen medals that are World Championship level and many other events she has attended throughout her career. She has achieved thirty-two medals throughout her professional career.
Recently, Fraser-Pryce disclosed her career’s future plans with ESPN as well as shared this news on Facebook. She shared that she will be retiring after the 2024 Paris Olympics to focus on family. Fraser-Pryce told ESPN, “My son needs me. My husband and I have been together since before I won in 2008. He has sacrificed for me.” Ten-time World Champion will be competing in her fifth and final Olympics.
The 2024 Paris Olympics begin on June 26th and ends on August 11th, and events where we can expect Fraser-Pryce to be competing will be the one-hundred-meter event, the two-hundred-meter event and the 4 x 100-meter event.