Saint Lucia's Julien Alfred storms to Olympic women's 100m title
World champion Sha'Carri Richardson of U.S. takes silver, American Jefferson 3rd
There were small signs for anyone willing to look that the sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson might not quite match the person she has become.
The wobbly starts. The little details. The meek exit from the Olympic trials earlier this summer after such a promising start.
All the hype aside, Richardson was never a sure thing to win an Olympic gold medal Saturday in the 100 meters. On a rainy and odd evening at the Stade de France, 23-year-old Julien Alfred from St. Lucia showed there's more than one inspirational story, and more than one great sprinter, at this Olympic track meet.
Alfred romped through the puddles and past Richardson and the rest of a largely depleted field, finishing in 10.72 seconds to throw a brick wall in front of what was supposed to be one of the best stories in Paris.
She beat Richardson by .15 seconds — the biggest margin in the Olympic 100 since 2008 — to bring home the first medal of any colour to the small eastern Caribbean island of St. Lucia.
Alfred's victory completed a journey that included her father's death in 2013 and a move to Jamaica as a teenager, alone, in hopes of training to become a great sprinter.
"He believed I could do it," Alfred said, crying as she talked about her dad. "He couldn't get to see me on the biggest stage of my career."
WATCH | Alfred captures women's 100m gold:
Richardson was left with silver — a nice colour but certainly not the point of all this after what she's been through the last three years. Her training partner, Melissa Jefferson, finished third in 10.92 seconds.
Richardson came in as the favourite even though she has hardly been flawless this summer.
Her opening race on the road to Paris included a terrible start at Olympic trials in an event she won with an untied shoelace.
Those starts got marginally better, but after she won the U.S. title in the 100, it was a bit of a shock when she failed to qualify for the 200, thus denying herself a chance at double gold in Paris.
Fraser-Pryce withdraws from 100m
On the gold-medal day in the 100, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce abruptly withdrew from the event before the semifinal, leaving all three Jamaicans who swept the podium at the Tokyo Games on the sideline for what, at one point, had been billed as the marquee race of the Olympics.
All of which seemed to set up perfectly for Richardson — only when she lined up in the semifinal, she was right next to Alfred, the only other woman in the Olympic field to crack 10.8 this year.
Richardson lumbered out of the blocks and lost that race by .05 seconds. It was a harbinger of things to come, though Alfred said she barely noticed who was in the lane next to her — it was Richardson again — when the final rolled around 90 minutes later.
Neither the spectre of Richardson on her right again nor the downpour that started about 10 minutes before the race began could slow down Alfred in the final.
Alfred's opening burst played big when she won the world indoor title earlier this year at 60 meters, and she started strong in this one, with two steps on the entire field at the 40-meter mark. Richardson, as has happened before this summer, laboured to get to full speed.
Alfred said on race days, she usually wakes up early on to jot down thoughts in her journal.
On Saturday, she kept it simple. "I wrote down `Julien Alfred: Olympic champion,"' she said.
Short. Simple. And 100 per cent on target, a lot like the race she ran to become one.
Earlier in the day, Noah Lyles finished second (10.04) in a sluggish first-round qualifying heat to make the semifinals in the men's 100. The semifinals and finals for that are set for Sunday.
Leduc just misses berth in women's 100m final
Audrey Leduc of Gatineau, Que., just missed out on advancing to Saturday night's final.
The 25-year-old ran 11.10 to finish fifth in Heat 3 one day after running a personal best and breaking her own Canadian record with a time of 10.95 seconds.
"I'm happy," she said. "For sure would have wanted to go to the final. But that's fine, I have the 200 metres tomorrow so my goal is just to go there and execute what I didn't execute today."
Leduc did find the atmosphere of an Olympic semifinal to be different than what she's used to.
"I wouldn't say it was intimidating but it's for sure different than what I'm used to doing back home," she said. "It's not the same level."
"The energy is different, it's higher," she added. "So just take that and put that in my next race and just learn from that and take it in to be able to do that in the future."
The University of Laval product came into the Olympics enjoying a breakout year in which she had snapped multiple Canadian records.
She broke Angela Bailey's 36-year-old national mark in the 100 with a 10.96 back in April. She then broke the 200 record with a time of 22.36 seconds in June.
Leduc had not run faster than 11.38 seconds in the 100 and 23.62 in the 200 last year.
She said she would not have guessed she'd be 12th at an Olympics if asked three months ago.
"I'd be surprised," Leduc said. "I would say, 'Hmm, I'm not sure.' Who knows but for now I'm just really happy with the result."
