For the third time in a month, Jamaican female sprinters secured 1-2-3 in a major event, this time with the second-fastest woman alive, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce leading the way.
At the Wanda Diamond League in Lausanne, Switzerland on August 26, Fraser-Pryce clocked the third-fastest time in history – 10.60 to take first place in the women’s 100 meters.
Coming in second was the fastest woman alive, Elaine Thomspon-Herah in 10.64. Shericka Jackson completed the trio with a time of 10.92.
“I don’t have the best technique as a sprinter so I have to be so deliberate in my efforts to make sure I cement those phases and I think tonight that made the difference,” Fraser-Pryce said in a post-race interview with Athletics Weekly.
“It was a very good field. I’m happy that I stuck to it. I’m walking away with a personal best and I’m so excited about that,” she said, adding that she believes that she can beat her new personal best.
Just last week, Thompson-Herah won the Women’s 100-meter event at the Diamond League meet in Eugene, Oregon in a time of 10.54 seconds, the second-fastest time in history.
Thompson-Herah was just 0.05 seconds shy of the women’s 100m record of 10.49 set by American Florence Griffith Joyner.
The fastest woman alive has placed Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 33-year-old women’s 100 metres world record squarely in her crosshairs.
The late Griffith-Joyner, popularly known as Flo Jo, stunned the world with an incredible 10.49 at the United States trials ahead of the Seoul Olympics in 1988 but the mark has never been viewed as attainable until now.
“Yes [I can go after the world record] because I ran 10.61 and I ran 10.54 so that means that I am close of course,” Thompson-Herah said last week.
But with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in the best shape of her career at 34 years old, the record is both hers and Thompson-Herah’s for the taking.
