Jamaica's sprint queen reaches finish line

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will retire as arguably the greatest woman sprinter of all time, but the Jamaican would like her legacy to be "the totality of who I am: the mom, the athlete, the entrepreneur, the philanthropist".

At 38, "the warrior", as she likes to refer to herself, ran her final individual 100m at a major event at the world championships in Tokyo, finishing sixth in a race won by American Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, who is 14 years her junior.

Fraser-Pryce not only brings the curtain down on a career spanning almost two decades at the top, but is also the last of a generation of extraordinary Jamaican men and women sprinters.

Just as Usain Bolt led the men — former 100m world record holder Asafa Powell and 2011 100m world champion Yohan Blake — so Fraser-Pryce did with the women, Elaine Thompson-Herah and the older Veronica Campbell-Brown.

Bolt and Fraser-Pryce are very different characters, the former playing to the crowd, while Fraser-Pryce is more reserved, her variety of hair coloring — she owns a haircare company — the furthest she would push it.

"She's been great for sports in general, and I've told her, her longevity shows that. I couldn't have done it," Bolt said in Tokyo.

As Fraser-Pryce ends her individual career, Jamaica crowned a new men's sprint star on Sunday, as Oblique Seville won the 100m men's title.

The diminutive Fraser-Pryce, nicknamed "The Pocket Rocket", which is also the name of her foundation, grew up in a crime-ridden neighborhood of Kingston.

Those humble beginnings meant she did not showboat as she collected a total of 25 Olympic and world championships medals, including three golds in the former and 10 golds in the latter.

She is the third-fastest woman of all time in the 100m with 10.60 seconds.

However, not even at her peak could she touch the controversial 10.49 world record of American Florence Griffith Joyner, who was the same age as Fraser-Pryce is now when she died in 1998.

'Never belonged'

For Fraser-Pryce, though, her career has been much more about showing how much women can achieve.

"I want my legacy to be the totality of who I am; the mom, the athlete, the entrepreneur, the philanthropist," she told July's edition of Marie Claire.

"I want it to be about impact. The impact that I've had on and off the track in creating space for other women to understand that they can thrive in life."

A further ingredient was added when she gave birth to her son Zyon. Less than two years later, in 2019, she was holding him in her arms parading around the stadium in Doha having won another 100m world title.

While her family shared her and husband Jason's delight, they, like everyone else, had been kept in the dark about her pregnancy.

"For a lot of us here in Jamaica, we are already battling with our insecurities of not feeling like we belong, and not feeling like we are worthy," Fraser-Pryce explained to Marie Claire.

"But I've always had the mentality: 'I'm just gonna work my way back'.

"That's how we grew up. That's how my resilience became so strong.

"I always thought: 'nobody's gonna give me anything. I have to make you see that you need me'."

However, she says becoming a mother made her feel reborn as an athlete.

"I think being a mom has really fueled me," she told reporters last month.

"My son is my biggest motivation. I think competing after I had my son, for women, it teaches us that our dreams don't end when we become mothers.

"If anything, they add value to our dreams and our goals, what we are chasing."

Fraser-Pryce has also learned from her upbringing. She says she had a happy childhood despite growing up in poverty, sharing a bed with her two siblings and her mother.

Having overcome adversity herself, she has funded academic scholarships to help others.

"I know what it feels like to have the dream, but lack the resources," said Fraser-Pryce.

Another Jamaican who knows everything about speed is former West Indies cricketer Michael Holding, known in his heyday as "whispering death" for his high-speed bowling.

"She has brought joy to Jamaicans at home and abroad, and made many of us even more proud to be Jamaicans," he said.

AFP