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News15 Sep 2022


Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce - sure to be a rocket launch in Budapest!

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Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce winning gold the Women's 100m Final at the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 (© Hannah Peters/Getty Images for World Athletics)

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will compete at the World Athletics Championships 2023 in Budapest as the five-time world champion of the 100m. The 35-year-old sprinter is in better form than ever this year and is preparing to win her sixth world title in the event in Budapest next summer.

If there was any question, in Eugene it became clear that Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is one of the best sprinters of all time. The Jamaican runner won the 100m for the fifth time in the World Championships history after 2009, 2013, 2015 and 2019. At 35 years old, she became the oldest woman to take first place in the event.

At just 1.52m tall, the legend nicknamed the Pocket Rocket won at Hayward Field in her trademark style. She launched from the start at lightning speed and built up an unassailable lead in the first stage of the race, leaving the rest of the field unable to catch her. The number of times she has won such a prestigious race in the past is incalculable.

This was the case at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, where she also won the gold medal. It is obvious that Fraser-Pryce’s performance is not affected by time. Not so the dye on her hair, which has varied in flamboyance in different colours over the past years during her major races. At the World Championships 2022 in Eugene, she picked purple in the 100m heats, and the next day in the final, she ran a championship record of 10.67 seconds in Jamaican style, with yellow and green hair colours.

It is no coincidence that she, as one of the most popular athletes, has had her own hair salon in Kingston since 2013. Unlike Chic Hair Ja, she serves a much nobler purpose with the Pocket Rocket Foundation, which she also founded, to financially support high school students in need to develop their talents.

Her time in the World Championships 2022 final shows that Fraser-Pryce is still in the form of her life at 35. She has been reaching these milestones as a mother since 7 August 2017, when she gave birth to her son, Zyon.

Jamaica's golden generation of female sprinters are making history right before our eyes. Alongside Fraser-Pryce, five-time Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah, Shericka Jackson, a 28-year-old at the perfect age, and Briana Williams, just 20, fell two tenths short of the world record of 40.82 in the 4×100m relay in Tokyo last year.

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce set the women's 100m meeting record of 10.65 seconds at the Diamond League final in Zurich in September: no one could keep up with the Jamaican, who was in great form. In addition to the trophy and the prize money, she also won a wild card to the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, where we can certainly look forward to her sixth gold!

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