That girl Shelly-Ann, the greatest
THE EDITOR, Sir:
IN EARLY 2017, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce announced her pregnancy via social media, but made it clear that she would return to the track after her pregnancy. This came shortly after severing ties with longtime coach Steven Francis, after the 2016 Rio Olympics, only to rejoin him shortly thereafter through the intervention of her sponsor Nike, a decision that has now proven to be the right one.
On Sunday, when Shelly-Ann won gold in the 100-metre final at the World Championship in Doha, Qatar, it was a victory celebrated by Jamaicans with much joy and pleasure. This victory, though, was not just Jamaica’s; it was for women worldwide, career-driven women, especially women in competitive sports.
For years, it was believed that childbirth meant the end of a career, but women over the years have proven this to be false; childbirth is merely new beginnings.
The 32-year-old Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce now tops the list of elite women to have returned to the top of their field, to have returned to their very best, and this only two years after giving birth. There were doubts about where she falls on the all-time list of great women sprinters.
Those doubts should have now vanished, with two Olympic gold medals and now four World Championship gold medals in the 100m. The ‘Pocket Rocket’ to ‘Mommy Rocket’, who hails from Waterhouse and attended George Headley Primary, Wolmers’ Girls and the University of Technology, Jamaica, is now undoubtedly the greatest female sprinter of all time.
Zyon mummy, the greatest.