Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce: Jamaican great ends career with world relay silver
‘Icing on cake’ – Fraser-Pryce retires with world silver
Image caption, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is an eight-time Olympic medallist
Passing the baton – quite literally – to the next generation, with one final medal secured, an icon bowed out.
Back in Japan, the nation where she made her first appearance on the world stage 18 years ago, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce made the 25th – and last – global podium of her illustrious career.
Nine world championships and five Olympic Games later, the 38-year-old signed off in Tokyo by helping a Jamaican quartet featuring 21-year-old twin sisters Tia and Tina Clayton to world 4x100m silver.
As she posed for photos with her adoring fans in the stands, there was no doubt the record five-time world 100m champion had departed the sport as a legend.
The most decorated female 100m sprinter in history, Fraser-Pryce has missed just one of the sport’s past 15 major global competitions.
That single absence came at the World Championships in London in 2017, when, one day after the 100m final, she gave birth to her son Zyon.
“I have had an amazing career and today’s medal is the icing on the cake,” said Fraser-Pryce, the third-fastest woman in history with a personal best of 10.60 seconds.
“My son will be excited. Today is a full circle moment for me, I was a reserve at my first world championships in Japan in 2007. I couldn’t have it any other way.
“I am grateful for the medals, the stadiums and the crowds where I have competed throughout my career.
“I have some plans and I want to focus on advocacy, and support women and athletes. I want to continue to make an impact.”
The impact she has was immediately evident both before and after the 100m.
Japan’s sold-out 60,000-capacity National Stadium unleashed the type of roar that had otherwise been reserved for the host nation’s own athletes when Fraser-Pryce was announced to the crowd.
Afterwards, 24-year-old winner Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, who went on to become the first woman since Fraser-Pryce in 2013 to win 100m and 200m gold at the same world championships, said she had been inspired by the Jamaican as a child, adding: “Shelly-Ann is the greatest of all time.”
The tributes to Fraser-Pryce have continued throughout the past nine days, as fellow athletes took the opportunity to acknowledge her historic achievements.
Eight-time Olympic champion Usain Bolt, of course, has nothing but respect for his compatriot.
His only complaint, he says, is that Fraser-Pryce has kept going long enough to make him look bad, eight years after he retired aged 30.
“There are no words to explain how great Shelly-Ann is,” Bolt told BBC Sport.
“She’s a legend in my book, she has proven again and again that she is one of the best in the world.
“She left, had a kid, came back to the sport and still dominated.
“I’m happy to know and to see this greatness.”
Trinidadian former world 200m champion Ato Boldon said: “I think it is the 100m career by which all others will be measured.
“I think she is the greatest 100m sprinter of all time.”
Fraser-Pryce’s World and Olympic medal haul
Olympic Games
3 x gold: 100m (2008, 2012), 4x100m relay (2020)
4 x silver: 100m (2020), 200m (2012), 4x100m relay (2012, 2016)
1 x bronze: 100m (2016)
World Championships
10 x gold: 100m (2009, 2013, 2015, 2019, 2022), 200m (2013), 4x100m relay (2009, 2013, 2015, 2019)
