Shelly-Ann, the cool cat

Photo: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce after winning gold in Sopot (AFP)

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is the coolest cat in track and field. The little dynamo blew away a good field at the World Athletic Indoor Games in Sopot Poland on Sunday March 9th 2014 to claim her first indoor gold medal in her first Indoor World Championships.

Photo: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce after winning gold in Sopot (AFP)

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is the coolest cat in track and field. The little dynamo blew away a good field at the World Athletic Indoor Games in Sopot Poland on Sunday March 9th 2014 to claim her first indoor gold medal in her first Indoor World Championships.

The World and Olympic double sprint champion was not the favourite heading into the 60m final, but instead that tag was placed on Murielle Ahoure of the Ivory Coast. Ahoure had clocked 7.09 in the heats and 7.06 in the semifinals compared to the Jamaican’s times of 7.12 (heats) and 7.08 (semifinals).

But Fraser-Pryce knows how to the rise to the occasion, as she has shown over the past few years in staking her claim as the world’s top female sprinter. Her bullet-like start, which has become her trade-mark, took her ahead of the field from the start and in this shortened sprint it was a foregone conclusion as to who the winner would be halfway through the race. A world leading 6.98 was fast enough to put her on top of the podium followed by Ahoure in a season’s best of 7.01 with Tianna Bartolleta of the USA finishing in third in 7.06.

When all the other athletes crashed into the sponge meant to slow them down at the end of the race, she simply ran up to it, tapped it with one hand, turned around, flashed her brilliant smile. Then produced a look that said -“what, didn’t you all know that I would win? I am Shelly-Ann after all and winning is what I do!”

Shelly-Ann has become synonymous with winning and she is fast building up her CV, to stake her claim as the greatest female sprinter of all times. She has now matched another famous great Jamaican sprinter, Veronica Campbell-Brown, in winning the world title at the 60m, 100m and 200m.

Jamaica left Sopot, Poland with 5 medals and finished in fifth place. Two silver, two bronze and a solitary gold medal, courtesy of the ‘pocket-rocket’.