Tokyo, Sep 22 (UNI) Jamaican track and field sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce retired from the world athletics in Tokyo after an eventful career spanning nearly two decades.
Nine world championships and five Olympic Games later, the 38-year-old signed off in Tokyo on Sunday by helping a Jamaican quartet featuring 21-year-old twin sisters Tia and Tina Clayton to world 4x100m silver.
The record five-time world 100m champion had departed the sport as a legend in Japan, the nation where she made her first appearance on the world stage 18 years ago, reports BBC.
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.”
Fraser-Pryce would make five global podiums following her comeback as a mother, including winning back-to-back world 100m titles as she wrote her name into the history books.
She became the oldest woman to claim a 100m world title in 2019, extending that record by three years aged 35 in Eugene.
Known as the ‘The Pocket Rocket’, the diminutive five-foot tall Fraser-Pryce was determined to end things on her own terms this year.
She was able to do just that, finishing sixth in the 100m final – still within 0.19 seconds of a podium consisting of athletes aged at least 14 years her junior – before bowing out on the podium.
“I have given so much to this sport,” Fraser-Pryce said after the 100m.
“A lot of people might question why come back [after giving birth], but I think it is so important to finish on your own terms,” she concluded.
Sprinter Fraser-Pryce retires with world silver
