Published11 August 2022, 00:00
AthleticsFraser-Pryce accelerates further in Monaco
Crowned world champion of the queen race for the fifth time less than a month ago, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce does not stop accelerating: in 10”62, the Jamaican rocket still improved the best world performance of the year in the 100m in Monaco.
The Jamaican never loses her smile.
AFP
Perhaps even more impressively, Fraser-Pryce ran in the Monegasque heat (around 28 degrees) his sixth 100m of the year in less than 10”70. An unprecedented regularity over a season for a sprinter, who is also 35 years old. It is even his third 100m under this time bar in the space of four days, following his 10”66 achieved on Saturday in Chorzow, Poland, and his 10”67 on Monday in Szekesfehervar, Hungary, as in the final. mid-July in Eugene (United States).
“I did what I had to do and the clock spoke. The Monaco track is just awesome, super fast. Being able to run consistently in 10”6 means a lot to me. It’s remarkable, it’s very difficult to maintain such a speed, ”appreciates the three-time Olympic champion and ten-time world champion. “I am in the second half of my thirties” but “I have the feeling that I still have (things) to give”, she repeats race following race.
Exceptional season
With 10.62 (wind: +0.4 m/s), she signed the sixth best performance in history on the straight, just two hundredths of a second from her personal best set in 2021 (10.60 ). Only two athletes have ever run faster in the 100m: fellow reigning Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah (10.54 in 2021), and world record holder, American Florence Griffith-Joyner (10.0 49 in 1988).
His ambition for the rest of the season? “Beat your personal best”, answers “SAFP”, which dispossessed the American Marion Jones of the record of the Monegasque meeting (10”72 in 1998).
Now expected in the Diamond League in Brussels on September 2, not yet decided for Lausanne a week earlier, the Jamaican will “take a little rest” by then following “three races in quick succession”. It was a particularly fast race that she dominated on Wednesday evening since her compatriot, freshly vice-world champion Shericka Jackson, beat her personal best there in 10”71 ( once morest 10”73) and the Ivorian Marie-Josée Ta Lou set a new African record in 10”72.
thirty hundredths
Launched to attack the 1500m world record, the Kenyan Faith Kipyegon, double Olympic champion in title and double world champion in the distance, failed at thirty hundredths of the goal. In 3’50”37, she nevertheless signed the second best time in history over 1500 m. Only the Ethiopian Genzebe Dibaba, world record holder in 3’50”07 since 2015 – she had already set it in Monaco -, ran faster.
“I was really ready for today, I’m very disappointed to have let it slip away in the last meters”, regretted the Kenyan half-founder. Kipyegon’s personal best so far was 3’51”07, a pile second behind Dibaba’s world record.
After his supersonic 19”31 which led him to world gold in the 200m in July, Noah Lyles also admits to having the world record in mind, in this case that of the legend Usain Bolt (19′ ’19 in 2009). For the moment, he has contented himself with enforcing his rank in 19”46 (+0.8 m/s of wind), ninth time in history nevertheless, ahead of his compatriots Erriyon Knighton (19”84) , recent world bronze medalist at 18, and Michael Norman (19”95), reigning world champion in the 400m.
(AFP)