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PARIS: Jamaica’s dominance in the women’s 100m and 200m came to an abrupt end in Paris as sprint queens Elaine Thompson-Hera, Shirley-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Sherika Jackson were absent or injured.
In the four Olympics before Paris, Jamaica won 10 of the 12 medals in the women’s 100 meters, including a clean sweep in Tokyo, and won four medals in the 200 meters in the previous five Olympics, prevailing in a constant showdown with the United States.
Jamaica’s “Big Three” have 19 Olympic medals between them and they were on the podium three years ago, but Thompson-Hera missed the Paris Olympics due to injury, and Fraser-Pryce and Jackson’s competitions also ended early due to injuries. They were not on the starting line of the individual finals or the relay.
The 100m final featured only one Jamaican competitor, Tia Clayton, with the title going to Julian Alfred of St Lucia, while the Americans took silver and bronze, marking the first time since 1988 that no Jamaican athlete made the podium.
Jamaica didn’t even make the final in the 200m – the first time since 1976 that they failed to win a medal.
Double sprint champion Thompson-Hera missed the Jamaican trials in June with an Achilles tendon injury, while Jackson initially withdrew from the 100m before the Olympics and later withdrew from the 200m just before she was scheduled to compete.
“My 2024 Olympic dream is over,” Jackson posted on Instagram on Friday. “I was hoping to win three more Olympic medals for Jamaica. Instead, I was struck by injury.”
Fraser-Pryce did compete in the 100m qualifiers but withdrew from the event after she was injured during warm-ups on the eve of her semifinal when security officials delayed her entry into the stadium.
“It’s hard to put into words how disappointed I am,” Fraser-Pryce, who is competing in her fifth Olympics, said in a statement.
Neither took part in the sprint relay, where the Jamaicans finished fifth, having won gold at the Tokyo Olympics and silver at the previous two Games. They then dropped the baton in the 4×400 final, having won medals in the previous six Games.
On the men’s side, Kishane Thompson missed out on 100m gold, finishing five thousandths of a second behind American Noah Lyles, and Rasheed Broadbell won bronze in the 110m hurdles, but Jamaica didn’t even qualify for the final of the 4×100 relay.
However, it was not all doom and gloom, as the country enjoyed fruitful results in the field events of this Olympics, bringing home their first medals in the men’s discus and shot put events.
Roger Stoner, the Paris Olympic discus champion, said: “Athletics gets a lot of attention, but field events are growing and we should get more support.”
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