'Rocket' hoping to finish with a bang

Closing chapter

When she made her Olympic debut in 2008, Fraser-Pryce concedes she didn't really know what kind of sprinter she might be. She was hoping to simply make the final.

"That was the only goal I had going in," she said.

She won that night, leading a Jamaican medal sweep that generated more headlines than her individual win.

When she won again in 2012, she was officially royalty — up there with Gail Devers and Florence Griffith Joyner and all the greats to ever run track — even if her win, once again, got overshadowed by the spectacle of Usain Bolt and the overall dominance of her country.

Yet, other than the braces, which came off in 2010, the trademark colorful wigs and the nickname "The Pocket Rocket" — homage to the 5-foot-tall burst of color and speed that she was — Fraser-Pryce's story wasn't all that well-known outside of Jamaica and, specifically, around Waterhouse, a working-class community in Kingston, where she grew up sharing a bed with two brothers and her mom in a house without an indoor toilet.

Story of resilience

The story, however, gained more texture and heart after her son, Zyon, was born in 2017.

She sat on the bed and cried after learning she was pregnant. Some friends were wishing her congratulations on a career that now, they suggested, was certainly over.

"Everyone's entitled to their opinion," she said. "I knew how I felt and I knew I wasn't ready to go. I had something left to do, and I stayed focused on the goal."

That quote came in 2019, after winning the gold medal at the world championships in Doha. Fraser-Pryce became a symbol of a growing phalanx of runners-turned-mothers — including Allyson Felix, Alysia Montano and Faith Kipyegon — who were tired of being written off just because they'd had kids.

Three years later in Oregon, after Fraser-Pryce won her fifth world title in the 100m — this one after another Jamaican, Elaine Thompson-Herah, had won two Olympics and seemingly left her far behind — she was shedding another stereotype.

"So many people believe that when women turn 35, it somehow diminishes our gift, our talent," Fraser-Pryce said after that one. "But I'm still able to line up and compete, and that is very special."

She's 38 now. In Tokyo, there will be women who have run better times than her when she lines up for one last race. But, none of them have gone through as many comebacks and come out winning as the sprinter now known as the "Mommy Rocket".

She runs a charitable foundation called the Pocket Rocket Foundation, which has offered almost 100 scholarships to students across her country.

"I know what it feels like to have the dream, but lack the resources," Fraser-Pryce said in an interview earlier this year with Marie Claire.

Running one more time will help spread that message to a broader audience again.

But, more than anything, she is using her latest second chance — this time, a second chance to say goodbye — to spread the word about resilience.

"I think resilience is knowing your power and owning your power," Fraser-Pryce said. "It's knowing what you're capable of and trusting in that and believing in that."

AGENCIES VIA XINHUA