Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce has announced that she will end her sporting career after the Paris Games. The Jamaican has won eight Olympic medals, three of them gold. The 37-year-old is regarded as one of the best sprinters in history.
Fraser-Pryce communicated her decision in an interview with Essence.com. The Olympic medallist revealed that the main reason she decided to end her career was her family. The athlete would have liked to spend more time with her.
“There is not a day that I get up, go to training and think to myself ‘I’ve had enough of this’. My son needs me. My husband and I were together before I even reached gold in 2018. He sacrificed for me,” – Jamaica said.
Fraser-Pryce won her first Olympic gold in Beijing when she won the 100m run. She repeated that feat four years later in London. In 2021, she added gold in the 4x100m relay. She won silver medals in London (200 metres run, 4×100 metres relay), Rio de Janeiro (4×100 metres relay) and Tokyo (100 metres run). To this she added a bronze in Rio de Janeiro in the 100 metres run.
In addition, the Jamaican representative has as many as 16 world championship medals to her credit, 10 of them gold. In addition, she has won the Diamond League five times. In 2013, she was voted athlete of the year in the IAAF’s World Athlete of the Year poll.
It is also worth mentioning that Fraser-Pryce had doping problems in 2010. Banned substances were detected in her system, but the offence did not qualify for a multi-year disqualification penalty. In the end, the Jamaican was suspended for six months and, in addition, her results from the day she was tested were cancelled.
