Thanks, Shelly-Ann

The announcement of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s retirement plans has landed in Jamaica with a muted thud. People seem not to want to deal with the end to a glorious career which still has one more big assignment ahead. The reluctance is perhaps understandable. Fraser-Pryce is more than just a running machine. Over the length of her career, she has become a personality we’ve all admired.

Ask her coaches. Behind the smile lies an unparalleled competitive streak that drives her in training and racing. The output is astonishing. Simply put, she is the most successful 100-metre sprinter in history. She jumped for joy at 21 after her upset win in the 100m at the 2008 Olympics and repeated the victory at the 2012 Games. All-star Americans Carl Lewis and Maurice Greene have three World Athletics Championship titles each. Fraser-Pryce has five, gathered in 2009, 2013 as part of a sprint double, 2015, 2019 and 2022.

Her 2022 season may be the best season ever run in the 100m, containing as it does a staggering seven sub-10.7 clockings. Overall, she holds the record for sub-11 times with 82, 15 more than that other Jamaican speed queen Merlene Ottey.

Look at her record over the 200m and you will find her 2013 gold, a 2012 Olympic silver and a personal best of 21.79 seconds.

Let’s do the medal math. She has five World 100m titles plus one at 200m and two Olympic gold medals in the 100m. That’s eight, yes eight global sprint titles for one person: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.

No one else comes close. On gold medals won in individual events, the wonderful Allyson Felix has four World Athletics Championships golds, three from the 200m and one in the 400m and one gold, in that memorable 2012 Olympic 200m final.

The little rocket had a modest high school athletics career, with gold only once at Boys and Girls’ Championships for Wolmer’s Girls’ School, in the 2004 Class Two 100m. At the time, her team manager, Jeffery Gordon, advised that if she got into a good programme, she could become great.

He was right. She joined Stephen Francis and the MVP Track Club and the rest is history. She left in 2020 and made more history at Elite Performance, where Reynaldo Walcott is the coach.

Now she has decided it’s time to say goodbye. As a wife and mother, her family instincts are calling and even though we may want more from her on the track, we have to respect that call. In addition, don’t underestimate the wear and tear – physical, mental and emotional – of doing what she has done superbly for all these years.

Her last big target is to win an unprecedented third Olympic gold medal in the 100. Win, lose or draw, she deserves our full support before, during and after her final bid for athletics history.

Hubert Lawrence has made notes at trackside since 1980.