Julien Alfred Takes Down Sha’Carri Richardson to Win 2024 Olympic 100m Title

PARIS – They run 100 meters to crown the fastest woman in the world. But on Saturday night on a wet track at the Stade de France, 23-year-old Julien Alfred only needed 60 meters to show the gap between her and every other female sprinter on the planet. With a great start and a powerful middle of her race, Alfred buried the rest of the field to win the 2024 Olympic 100-meter title in a personal best of 10.72 seconds. It was the first Olympic medal in any sport for Alfred’s home nation of St. Lucia, a speck of an island of 180,000 nestled in the south Caribbean between Martinique and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and she earned it in style by winning one of the Games’ most glamorous events.

Sha’Carri Richardson of the United States took the silver in 10.87, just ahead of training partner Melissa Jefferson (10.92). Richardson won the world title last year in Budapest in commanding fashion, setting a championship record of 10.65 in the final, but was doomed in Paris by a poor start, an issue that has plagued Richardson throughout her career. Richardson spotted Alfred nearly .08 of a second out of the blocks – her reaction time of .221 was easily the slowest in the field, with no one else above .167 – and Alfred put more ground on her during the opening 30 meters. By the time Richardson exited her drive phase and began looking down the track, the gap was already too big to overcome.

Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the greatest female sprinter of all time, did not wind up featuring in the final as she withdrew before the semifinals due to an undisclosed injury. Fraser-Pryce, 37, who earned gold-gold-bronze-silver in her four previous Olympic 100m appearances, had run a limited pre-Olympic schedule of just two meets and announced earlier this year she planned to retire after the Paris Games.

Julien Alfred just won the FIRST Olympic medal EVER for Saint Lucia! 🇱🇨 #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/2GP4jATT2g

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 3, 2024

Results; Wind -0.1 m/s

Richardson Plagued by Poor Start

Richardson, the world champ and world leader who beat Alfred by .10 at the Pre Classic in May, had come to France as the clear pre-meet favorite. But she brought with her one big weakness: an inconsistent start. When Richardson gets a decent one, as she did when she ran a world-leading 10.71 at the US Olympic Trials in June, she is nearly unbeatable. But she has a tendency to hang in the blocks during championships, and while it may not have cost her the gold tonight – Alfred was sensational – it made it that much harder for Richardson to contend.

This is something Richardson has done often in championships, and in the rounds she is typically so much better than everyone that it does not matter. During the semis of the 2023 Worlds, Richardson’s reaction time of .222 was even worse than tonight, but she cleaned things up in the final and won the gold. At the Olympic Trials in June, she started unevenly in both the prelims and semis before improving in the final. 

And at the Olympics, her reaction times were consistently among the slowest in the field. She registered .200 in the prelims (which was 69th among the 72 athletes) and .191 in the semis (tied for 24th of 26). But in the biggest race of her life tonight, Richardson could not raise her game as she did at Worlds and the Trials.

Alfred Put It All Together When It Mattered in 2024

In recent weeks, it had become clear that Alfred was a threat to win this race. Last year, she won the NCAA sprint triple for the University of Texas — 100, 200, 4×100 — and was the only woman to beat Richardson in the 100 in the leadup to Worlds. By the time Worlds rolled around in late August, however, Alfred was exhausted from a long collegiate season. The World Championship final was her 47th race of the year, and she finished just off the podium in 5th in Budapest.

This year was different. Now a full-time professional for Puma, Alfred and her coach Edrick Floreal were able to plan her schedule around the Olympics, and unlike athletes from more populous countries, she had no trials to navigate. She won the world indoor 60m title in March and entered the Olympics fresh off a big 10.85 win in Monaco three weeks ago (into a significant headwind). An upset was always possible. 

And “upset” may no longer have applied by the time of the final, given Alfred beat Richardson in the semis, 10.84 to 10.89. The more accurate term for this race was blowout. Alfred’s margin of victory was .15, the largest in an Olympic 100 final since 2008.

US 100m Gold Has to Wait

The story we were told, especially if you watched any of NBC’s coverage in the leadup to the Games, was that this was the Sha’Carri Richardson Olympics – and to be fair, it was a pretty great story. A high-profile suspension from the last Olympics in Tokyo. A comeback gold medal at Worlds last year. Saturday night was to be her crowning moment, Olympic gold in the Stade de France.

Instead, the US will have to wait at least four more years for Olympic 100m gold, a title no American woman has earned since Gail Devers 28 years ago (Marion Jones crossed the line first at Sydney 2000 but her medal was later stripped due to doping). Considering what she has overcome in the last three years, a silver medal for Richardson is far from a failure. But it is not the ending Richardson wanted — though she had no interest in telling her own story after the race. Richardson did not stop to talk to press in the mixed zone and neither she nor Jefferson were present at the (supposedly) mandatory medalists’ press conference.

Update: Jefferson tweeted on Sunday morning that she was taken to doping control, where her testing was delayed, and as a result she was unable to leave for the press conference.

Alfred Believed She Would Win This Morning

Alfred decided to pen her own script. An early riser on race days, Alfred woke up at 5 a.m. this morning and wrote four words in her journal: Julien Alfred Olympic champion.

The wonderful thing about track & field, the Olympics’ most diverse sport, is that great stories can come from anywhere. In three days of Olympic competition, we have had gold medalists from Ecuador, Uganda, China, the United States, and Norway. Across the track from Alfred on Saturday night, Thea LaFond won the triple jump, the first Olympic medal for Dominica – population 72,000. Just like Alfred’s, it was a gold.

Alfred is proud of her heritage, and back in the St. Lucian capital of Castries, the celebrations have already begun. Alfred said she cannot wait to join them — but first she has the 200 meters in Paris, which begins on Sunday.

“I just feel so honored to wear my country’s name across my chest and be an ambassador for them,” Alfred said.

Sometimes, Alfred will take an Uber and get asked about her accent. The typical response, when she reveals her home nation: “Where is St. Lucia?”

Now people know: it is the home of Julien Alfred, fastest woman in the world.