FROM THE SENT TO EUGENE. She can’t do more than this or maybe she can, but it would still not be enough, nothing is enough for Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce to be considered, celebrated and paid as much as Usain Bolt.
The Jamaican sprinter has won the 100 meters at the World Championships five times, in several editions spread between 2009, the year in which her friend Usain cultivated records, until 2022 when, at the age of 35, she confirmed herself with a 10 ”67 race. in reality time cannot capture because it is too beautiful to see. She does it with an all-Jamaican podium, one of those reggae parties that have been talked about so much from Beijing 2008 to the 2017 World Cup in London, the last act of a legend rightly considered this way. Last dance of man capable of taming time.
For Shelly Ann Fraser Price, with the name and the longest extensions on the track, it’s not the same. She challenges and beats ward sisters Shericka Jackson, 28, with staff, 10 ”73 and Elaine Thompson Herah, 30, third in 10” 81. He leads a movement that, in Jamaica, unlike the men’s one, does not stop and has only Bubka ahead, with 6 titles in the auction, in the ranking of those who have collected multiple golds in a single individual event.
All this splendor does not make the light it should. It must be because they call her “Mommy Rocket”, the rocket mother and she likes it because she reminds her that in this wonderful journey, in which her race has become more and more fascinating, she has taken the space of life. When her son Zyon was born in 2017, on Bolt’s credits, she didn’t know where her career was. She didn’t close it or pause it. She thought of something else, then she realized she could continue to be who she had always been and she moved on. Without fanfare, with the same gold as before.
He picked up Zyon for laps, but he never thought he was a theme of courage. She knows how to run: she was born to do it, she trains for it and being a mother or not is not a determining factor. And neither is age: “We often get told when it’s time to stop, we let ourselves be influenced by the judgment of others and for a woman, for an athlete, the performance test begins after 30, and after 33 the wait for the withdraw”. She, at 35, still wins, indeed she dominates. Yet it is not Bolt.
Records that do not define
You lack records, right. Too bad that those of female speed are linked to not very clear times in which the sprint ahead of Florence Griffith has burned a good piece of the future. Those numbers, 10 “49 on 100 and 21” 34 on 200, are hard to believe and seemed impossible to beat. Now there are those who try strides of approach but a historical and cultural limit remain: the glory, the value cannot be defined by that border.
Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce, always with a complete registry because respect must be respected, did everything else. She appeared at the 2008 Games with braces and a black tail. She has transformed and her colored hair, excessive, gaudy, today are not just a habit: they accompany the frequencies, support the speed, match the supports you need. Her style of hers, a way of taking the unique runway and her brand: you can’t help but notice me. Yet to be evident, flashy as she deserves something is still missing.
Athletics celebrates it, Bolt himself sends compliments and Jamaican flags, the statistics make it unforgettable, but the tribute is glued to the medals, at the moment in which they are counted and not to her who manages to do magic.
“I didn’t get to Eugene in top form but what matters is grabbing the opportunities, not letting them go.” Only absolute champions, rare people, succeed. If they are men they become meek, if they are women they are less noticeable. In sport, the parity in prizes and attendance is almost total, unfortunately it is only the one recorded, the one perceived is decades after its completion.