St. Lucia sprinter Julien Alfred won the 100m race at the Paris Olympics on Saturday. The West Indian beat world number one and new TV star Sha’carri Richardson and another American, Melissa Jefferson, to the finish line in a final in which Quebec’s Audrey Leduc failed to qualify.
The second-ranked runner in the world, Julien Alfred covered the distance in 10.72 seconds on a track where rain had just started to fall. This result marks a turning point in the discipline, which is always used to seeing at least one Jamaican runner on the podium at the Olympic Games, when it is not on the three steps, as in Tokyo in 2021. The only Jamaican at the start of the final on Saturday, Tia Clayton finished in 7th placee and penultimate place.
Olympic vice-champion in Tokyo and one of the favourites, Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce had withdrawn a few minutes before the semi-finals for a reason that is still unknown.
Audrey Leduc misses the final
Competing in the 100m race, the new sensation of Quebec athletics, Audrey Leduc, failed to qualify for the final. She could only do better than 11e time of 11.10 sec in the semi-final, just 3 hundredths of a second behind the one who secured the 8th and final available place.
The 25-year-old athlete seemed to take the matter philosophically. “That’s sprinting. […] “That’s what makes a show. That’s life,” she said after the race.
The day before she had achieved a time of 10.95 seconds in qualifying, lowering her own Canadian record in the process. Immediately after her race on Saturday, she still did not know what had gone less well. “We will have to see the video. […] “It’s certain that the atmosphere was very different. The stadium was more on fire,” she observed on Saturday, while specifying that she had not been more nervous.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a disappointment. It was still an Olympic semi-final. For me it was a first experience at the Games.” The sprinter already had her mind set on her next event, the 200m, the qualifications for which are scheduled for this Sunday. “My goal will be to do what I didn’t do today and just have a good race.”
De Grasse qualified, Brown disqualified
The first round of qualifying for the men’s 100m was held earlier in the day. At 17e World ranking, Canadian Andre De Grass, six times Olympic medalist, has once again managed to secure a place for the next round of the competition which is to be held this Sunday with the semi-finals and the final. His compatriots, Duan Asemota and Aaron Brown were not so lucky, the former failing to do better than the 29e time and the second being disqualified for a false start.
Like Audrey Leduc and Jacqueline Madogo, on the women’s side, Andre De Grasse, Aaron Brown and Brendon Rodney should also be in the 200m, in addition to being in the 4 x 100m relay.
TV stars
Used to having the spotlight on them for just a few weeks every four years, Olympic sprinters have recently found a new space in the public eye thanks to a new documentary series on Netflix.
Filmed in the style that has been in vogue for a few years now and has helped to bring a whole new audience to unlikely sports like Formula 1, the Sprint series showcases the headliners of the 100m and 200m, both men and women, their flamboyant personalities, their rivalries, their ups and downs. In a discipline where not only muscles but also egos are often oversized, we get to know the very expansive Americans Noah Lyles and Sha’carri Richardson, the fierce Jamaicans Shericka Jackson, Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and the more reserved Italian Lamont Marcell Jacobs.
Several of these new stars of the general public were there Saturday for the semi-finals and final of the women’s 100m and the first qualifying rounds of the men’s 100m. However, the trio of Jamaicans were missing, with Elaine Thompson-Herah having withdrawn from the Games due to injury and Shericka Jackson preferring to concentrate on the 200m.