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JAM | Feb 9, 2024

Iconic sprinter Fraser-Pryce to retire after the 2024 Paris Olympics

/ Our Today

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Jamaica’s iconic sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in action during the women’s 100 m, preliminary heat of the Athletics World Championships at the National Athletics Center. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will retire after the 2024 Paris Olympics this summer, she told the February edition of the Essence magazine in an interview.

Berlin (dpa): Jamaica’s iconic sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will retire after the 2024 Paris Olympics this summer, she told the February edition of Essence magazine in an interview.

She said the decision isn’t due to restraints of age or the desire to stop racing, but to spend more time with her family.

“There’s not a day I’m getting up to go practice and I’m like, ‘I’m over this,'” Fraser-Pryce said. “My son needs me. My husband (Jason Pryce) and I have been together since before I won in 2008. He has sacrificed for me. We’re a partnership, a team.

“And it’s because of that support that I’m able to do the things that I have been doing for all these years. And I think I now owe it to them to do something else.”

Fraser-Pryce won her first Olympic gold at the 2008 Games in Beijing, becoming the first Caribbean woman to win Olympic gold in the 100 metres.

FILE PHOTO: Athletics – Diamond League – Monaco – Stade Louis II, Monaco – August 10, 2022 Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce celebrates after winning the Women’s 100m REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/File Photo

Four years later at London 2012, she was just the third woman in history to defend an Olympic 100m title. A third gold came at Tokyo 2020 in the 4x100m relay.

She has also claimed four Olympic silver medals and one bronze. Her achievements also include 10 gold medals at world championships.

If selected by her national Olympic committee for the Paris Games, Fraser-Pryce would be appearing at her fifth Summer Olympics.

She’s focused on training for Paris, which she says is about “pushing boundaries” and “showing people that you stop when you decide. I want to finish on my own terms.”

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