Athletics-Jamaican sprinter Fraser-Pryce to retire after Paris 2024

FILE PHOTO: Athletics – World Athletics Championship – Women’s 4x100m Relay Heats – National Athletics Centre, Budapest, Hungary – August 25, 2023 Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce on her way to win heat 1 REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo/File Photo

(Reuters) – Three-time Olympic champion sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will retire after the 2024 Paris Olympics, saying she owes it to her family.

Fraser-Pryce was the first 100m sprinter to win individual medals in four consecutive Olympic Games. The Jamaican began her journey in Beijing 2008, which saw her become the first Caribbean woman to win gold in the women’s 100m.

FILE PHOTO: Athletics – World Athletics Championship – Women’s 100m Final – National Athletics Centre, Budapest, Hungary – August 21, 2023 Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce celebrates after winning bronze REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

She held on to her 100m title in London 2012, joining a select few to have done so. Despite battling a toe injury, she won bronze in 2016 Rio Olympics and a silver in relay.

After giving birth in 2017, she won another Olympic silver and a relay gold in Tokyo 2020.

“My son needs me, my husband and I have been together since before I won in 2008. He has sacrificed for me,” 37-year-old Fraser-Pryce told Essence.com.

“We’re a partnership, a team, and it’s because of that support that I’m able to do the things that I have been doing for all these years,” she added. “I think I now owe it to them to do something else.”

Currently, she is focussed on preparing for Paris, which she views as an opportunity to push boundaries.

It is about “showing people that you stop when you decide. I want to finish on my own terms,” she said.

In 2019, she became the oldest woman to claim the 100m World Championship title in Doha. She further solidified this achievement by winning the title again at the age of 35 in Eugene in 2022, 14 years after her initial Olympic gold triumph.

“It’s not enough that we step on a track and we win medals. You have to think about the next generation that’s coming after you, and give them the opportunity to also dream – and dream big,” Fraser-Pryce said.

(Reporting by Shifa Jahan in Bengaluru, Editing by Kylie MacLellan)