Sport
London 2012: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce defends 100m title to take gold
Given Bolt’s massive worldwide popularity, Fraser-Pryce sometimes takes second-billing in her home country.
“I go to the supermarket,” she said, “and they ask me, `Where’s Usain? Where’s Usain?”‘
But those with a sense of the history know what a big role women have played in turning sprinting into the national pastime. Merlene Ottey has nine Olympic medals, and Campbell-Brown just won her sixth. Now Fraser-Pryce has two golds.
“Jamaican sprints for women have been going great for a long time now,” Campbell-Brown said. “We never fail to deliver and it continues.”
Four years ago, Fraser-Pryce was relatively unknown, a 21-year-old who first stunned her country, then the world, on her way to Olympic gold. There was a setback in 2010, a six-month ban for using a painkiller to treat a toothache.
But she cleared her head, got back to work and showed, once again, a knack for peaking at exactly the right time.
“This means a lot to me,” Fraser-Pryce said. “For two years, it’s been up, down, up, down, all over.”
She’s not done yet. She won the 200 at the Jamaican Olympic trials, as well, and preliminaries for that race start Monday night.
