The final 100 meters race is one of the most anticipated in athletics, and it came with the great surprise of Julien Alfred, a 23-year-old athlete from Saint Lucia who won the first gold medal for his country, surpassing the competition with a time of 10.72, becoming the current champion in Paris 2024.
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The Caribbean sprinter prevailed to achieve the first Olympic gold in her country's history and thwart the golden dream of the top favorite, American Sha'carri Richardson, who had to settle for silver with a time of 10.87.
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In the race, American Melissa Jefferson also participated and won the Bronze medal with a time of 10.92, followed by D. Neita from Great Britain (10.96), T. Terry from the United States (10.97), M. Kambundji from Switzerland (10.99), and T. Clayton from Jamaica (11.04).
The fastest in the world
Julien Alfred won her second Gold medal in 2024, but her first Olympic one, as it was her first participation in the Olympic Games and being classified as the fastest in the women's 100 meters flat race. It is the first medal -of any color- in the history of an island with no more than 180,000 inhabitants, which will now be recognized for having the fastest woman in the world.
The first medal came in the 2024 World Indoor Athletics Championships, in the 60-meter race.
Alfred participated in the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games and won the silver medal. Who won the gold? Nigerian Rosemary Chukwuma, who in Paris couldn't make it past the semifinals.
And Sha'Carri Richardson?
The controversial Sha'Carri Richardson, world champion in Budapest 2023, was the top candidate to win the gold. She is the fastest woman in the world, in Tokyo 2020 she was suspended for doping and now she finished second.
In 2021, a positive test for cannabis left an athlete out of the Tokyo Olympics. The athlete had explained that the positive result was because she smoked marijuana during the U.S. Olympic trials due to being depressed over the news of her biological mother's death.
Richardson had stated that the Paris Olympics was her year: “It is the last time the Olympics are held without Sha’Carri Richardson and the last time the United States returns without the gold medal in the 100 meters,” a goal she could not achieve against the fast Julien Afred.