Tweet
ALL HAIL QUEEN SHELLY-ANN
Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce on Monday established herself as Jamaica’s greatest ever female 100-metre sprinter and one of the greatest of all time when she destroyed a quality field in the women’s sprint finals at the 14th IAAF World Athletic Championships in Moscow. In doing so she became the first and only woman to win two Olympic and two World titles.
What is also telling is that had it not been for injury, she could have accomplished this feat two years ago in Daegu, South Korea. Still only 26 (she turns 27 in December) the Pocket Rocket can claim an unprecedented third world title in Beijing in 2015, well before her 28th birthday when she will still be at the peak of her powers.
What makes SAFP’s performance so special was the margin of victory over what was a faster field than the one she faced in London in 2012. Every woman in the field had gone below 11-seconds and more than once this year.
From Carmelita Jeter, who ran well for bronze, considering she was coming off a bad thigh injury she picked up in Shanghai in May to newcomer Octavious Freeman who had a season best of 10.87 at the USA trials in June, this was a field of quality female sprinters. It didn’t seem to matter to the affable Jamaican sprint queen who obliterated her opponents by an astonishing 0.22 seconds, the largest margin of victory ever at a World Championships and perhaps the most impressive since Florence Griffith Joyner decimated the field by 0.29 seconds at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea.
The expected challenge from Jeter and Blessing Okagbare, who finished out of the medals, did not materialize for several reasons; injury, as was the case with Jeter and with Okagbare, tired legs. The latter, on the evening before, was engaged in a intense battle for the long jump title with American Britney Reese. The Nigerian, who had run back-to-back personal bests in London just two weeks previously (10.86 and 10.79), was expected to mount a serious challenge to SAFP but only on the condition that she sacrificed the long jump which was being held in between the first round of the 100-m heats and the semis and final. Six runs and jumps for the woman who finished second with leaps of 6.99m and 6.96m, among her best, left the 23-year-old Nigerian with leaden legs for the finals and it cost her dearly as she finished sixth.
The other African in the race, Murielle Ahoure created the history that Okagbare was expected to make, by becoming the first African woman to medal in a sprint at the World Championships. Trained by Alan Powell, Ahoure, the daughter of an Ivorian army general, has been living and training in the USA and had ambitions of doing well at the championships this year after falling short of expectations in London last year.
None of that matters now as the moment of these championships so far has been the dominance of the smallest lady in the field over her rivals and it bodes well for her going into the 200m where she goes for a second gold medal against another tough field that will include three-time world champion Alyson Felix, Ahoure, Okagbare, and rising star Kimberlyn Duncan of the United States. But if she applies herself like she did in the 100m, surely the Pocket Rocket could blast her way to an unprecedented sprint double, something no other Jamaican woman has managed to accomplish.
http://gleanerblogs.com/sports/?p=2078
Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce on Monday established herself as Jamaica’s greatest ever female 100-metre sprinter and one of the greatest of all time when she destroyed a quality field in the women’s sprint finals at the 14th IAAF World Athletic Championships in Moscow. In doing so she became the first and only woman to win two Olympic and two World titles.
What is also telling is that had it not been for injury, she could have accomplished this feat two years ago in Daegu, South Korea. Still only 26 (she turns 27 in December) the Pocket Rocket can claim an unprecedented third world title in Beijing in 2015, well before her 28th birthday when she will still be at the peak of her powers.
What makes SAFP’s performance so special was the margin of victory over what was a faster field than the one she faced in London in 2012. Every woman in the field had gone below 11-seconds and more than once this year.
From Carmelita Jeter, who ran well for bronze, considering she was coming off a bad thigh injury she picked up in Shanghai in May to newcomer Octavious Freeman who had a season best of 10.87 at the USA trials in June, this was a field of quality female sprinters. It didn’t seem to matter to the affable Jamaican sprint queen who obliterated her opponents by an astonishing 0.22 seconds, the largest margin of victory ever at a World Championships and perhaps the most impressive since Florence Griffith Joyner decimated the field by 0.29 seconds at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea.
The expected challenge from Jeter and Blessing Okagbare, who finished out of the medals, did not materialize for several reasons; injury, as was the case with Jeter and with Okagbare, tired legs. The latter, on the evening before, was engaged in a intense battle for the long jump title with American Britney Reese. The Nigerian, who had run back-to-back personal bests in London just two weeks previously (10.86 and 10.79), was expected to mount a serious challenge to SAFP but only on the condition that she sacrificed the long jump which was being held in between the first round of the 100-m heats and the semis and final. Six runs and jumps for the woman who finished second with leaps of 6.99m and 6.96m, among her best, left the 23-year-old Nigerian with leaden legs for the finals and it cost her dearly as she finished sixth.
The other African in the race, Murielle Ahoure created the history that Okagbare was expected to make, by becoming the first African woman to medal in a sprint at the World Championships. Trained by Alan Powell, Ahoure, the daughter of an Ivorian army general, has been living and training in the USA and had ambitions of doing well at the championships this year after falling short of expectations in London last year.
None of that matters now as the moment of these championships so far has been the dominance of the smallest lady in the field over her rivals and it bodes well for her going into the 200m where she goes for a second gold medal against another tough field that will include three-time world champion Alyson Felix, Ahoure, Okagbare, and rising star Kimberlyn Duncan of the United States. But if she applies herself like she did in the 100m, surely the Pocket Rocket could blast her way to an unprecedented sprint double, something no other Jamaican woman has managed to accomplish.
http://gleanerblogs.com/sports/?p=2078
Comment