Elaine Thompson-Herah, a five-time Olympic gold medallist, has decided not to run in the 200-metre event at the upcoming Jamaican trials. Therefore, she will not be defending her title at the Games in Paris in July.
At the June 27–30 Jamaican Athletics Championships, the sprinter is only registered to compete in the 100 metres.
On her recent performances
At the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene last month, Thompson-Herah—who became the first woman to win back-to-back Olympic sprint doubles when she won her 100- and 200-metre crowns in Tokyo—came in last in her season-opening 100-metre race, clocking in at 11.30 seconds.
She appeared to suffer an injury during the 100-metre race in the NYC Grand Prix earlier this month, finishing with a performance record of 11.48. She had previously participated in the 200-metre competition in April 2023.
The athlete recently named Reynaldo Walcott as her new coach, after she and Shanikie Osbourne parted ways last November.
The Paris Olympics’ athletics competition will be held at the Stade de France from August 1 to 11, 2024.
Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica has pledged to make a comeback after being forced to withdraw from the Olympics in Paris due to an Achilles ailment.
The athlete previously chose not to compete in the 200 metres at the Jamaican trials, which put an end to her hopes of pulling off the record “triple double” of winning the 100 and 200 metres in three straight Olympics.
After injuring her lower leg during the New York Grand Prix earlier this month, Thompson-Herah announced on social media her withdrawal from the Jamaican trials but said that she is determined to continue her track career.
The athlete said: “It’s a long road but I am willing to start over and keep working and to make full recovery and resume my track career. I am hurt and devastated to be missing the Olympics this year but at the end of the day it’s sports and my health comes first.”
“I will wait and I will still continue to work towards my goals that I haven’t achieved yet. I will be definitely watching hopefully from the stands and cheer my country Jamaica 🇯🇲 on,” she added.
On ending the historic ‘triple double’ Olympic wins
Thompson-Herah was hoping to lock down a spot in the 100-metre and relay teams, but she had already opted not to run in the 200-metre event at the trials. After becoming the first woman to win consecutive gold medals in the 100 and 200 metres in the Tokyo Olympics, she lost the opportunity to attempt an Olympic ‘triple double’ by winning the 100 and 200 metres in the next Games.
With a second-fastest 100-metre time of 10.54, just 0.05 slower than Florence Griffith-Joyner’s world record, and the third-fastest 200-metre time in history, she is undoubtedly a modern-day sporting legend in the field of athletics.
Thompson-Herah has had a difficult few years following Tokyo, and last year’s injury-plagued season largely cost her a spot at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest. She came back for the 4×100-metre relay, but Jamaica won silver behind the United States, so she was not chosen for the final.
In the past, Thompson-Herah has experienced serious consequences from her Achilles injuries. She said the one-year Covid wait for the Tokyo Olympics helped her overcome the issue after she struggled to fifth place in the 100m at the 2017 World Championships and fourth place in 2019, after the Rio Olympics.
Shericka Jackson and Gabrielle Thomas, two of the world’s fastest women over the 200 metres, will be vying for their first individual Olympic gold at the Paris Games.
Jackson was part of the Jamaican quartet that won the 4×100 metres gold in Tokyo three years ago, but her individual best is a 100-metre bronze from Tokyo.
Thomas was one of the American foursome that claimed the 4×100 metres silver in Tokyo. Her individual best is a 200-metre silver from Tokyo, where she was beaten to the gold by the Jamaican Elaine Thompson-Herah.
Thompson-Herah, who did a treble in Tokyo, winning the 100 metres, 200 metres and the 4×100 metre relay, is not competing in Paris because of an Achilles tendon injury.
Despite her absence, the Paris 200 metres will see a formidable field.
Shericka Jackson
Jackson, the reigning 200-metre world champion, won the event at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, in 21.41 seconds. Only one woman has run the 200 metres faster – the late Florence Griffith-Joyner of the United States, who clocked 21.34 seconds, a world record to this day.
While Jackson’s is the second fastest 200-metre run by a woman, Thomas ran pretty close too. She ran the distance in 21.60 seconds – the fourth fastest time — in Eugene, United States, in September 2023.
Jackson came to Paris to run in the 100 metres as well as the 200 metres, but she pulled out of the 100 metres recently, citing an injury she suffered in a race in Hungary in July. She said she had to “protect my body”. She decided to focus on the 200 metres instead, in which she won the World Championships in 2022 and 2023.
Gabrielle Thomas
Thomas is also hoping for gold.
“When I came back from the Tokyo Olympics with a bronze medal and a silver, I was very happy with that,” she said in an interview with Sky Sport.
“I would have been happy ending my career there. It’s really all the outward talk and chatter that you hear that makes you want that gold medal. You’re like, ‘Dang, well I really got to go get that!’ But it wasn’t about that for me. It was about the fact that I put on a performance that I was proud of, and that was my best season to date. If I can go and replicate that in Paris, I’ll be really happy. Hopefully, that ends up with a gold medal.”
The 200 metres will be more than a two-horse race.
Jackson and Thomas will have to contend with other famous sprinters, such as Dina Asher-Smith, Great Britain’s 2019 world 200-metre champion, and Cote d’Ivoire legend Marie-Josee Ta Lou-Smith. The African star finished among the top five in the sprint double at the last two Games. The reigning world indoor 60-metre champion Julien Alfred will also be in the running. She will be raring to bring home the first Olympic medal to St Lucia.
A parting factoid for the fans: There have been only three repeat winners in the history of the women’s 200 metres at the Olympics. Elaine Thompson-Herah was the last. The 200-metre gold medallist in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and the Tokyo Olympics three years ago is missing the action through injury.
The Jamaicans have dominated the women’s 200-metre sprint for an incredible 41 years, but the possibility of this ending looms large with the approaching Paris Olympics.
The competition has been thrown open because the reigning champion, the Jamaican Elaine Thompson-Herah, won’t be defending her title in Paris.
She has registered to compete only in the 100 metres, and not the 200 metres, at the Jamaican Athletics Championships from June 27 to 30. The deadline to register passed on Monday (June 17).
The Jamaicans and Americans to watch
Jamaica has other celebrated sprinters such as Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson.
But they will face strong competition from the Americans.
Currently, the 27-year-old American Gabby Thomas is at the top of her game. She has the third-best time in the world this season in the 200 metres, clocking in at 22.08 seconds.
The American McKenzie Long, who holds the world lead in the event, is another strong contender. She will be seen in action soon at the US Olympic track and field trials. Five more of the season’s best athletes will be competing with her for coveted spots on the US Olympic team.
Anavia Battle and Brittany Brown will also be vying for the 200-metre spot with great intensity.
Brown’s chances of winning this season have increased because of her recent victory over Jamaican great Shericka Jackson at the Oslo Diamond League.
The Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is also in the running.
The ten-time world champion Fraser-Pryce will make her Olympic debut in the 200-metre sprint at the Jamaican trials. It will be a noteworthy moment in her remarkable 22-year career.
Fraser-Pryce hasn’t won the 200-metre Olympic gold yet, but her perseverance and track record of incredible returns make her a serious competitor.
Shericka Jackson pulls out of 100m to ‘protect my body’, she will focus on 200m in Paris Olympics
Jamaican track star Shericka Jackson won’t be chasing a sprint double at the Paris Olympics. She dropped out of the 100 metres on Wednesday, saying, “The decision is just to protect my body.”
She will focus instead on the 200 metres in which she is the current world champion, having won the event in Eugene, USA, in 2022 and Budapest, Hungary, in 2023.
Jackson explained she dropped out of the 100 metres because of an injury she suffered at a race earlier this month.
‘I got hurt’ in Hungary race, she says
In Jackson’s final pre-Olympics race in Hungary, she pulled up with a calf cramp and limped off the track.
“I got hurt, and me and my coach felt like it was a good decision to only run one event,” she told reporters.
Earlier this week, Jackson’s coach, Stephen Francis, told the Jamaica Gleaner website that Jackson “appears OK to me”.
Jackson, however, described the decision to pull out as coming from both herself and Francis.
Shericka Jackson, ranked number two in the world for 100 metres, has pulled out of the 100m less than two days before the heats start.
Jackson said she would still run the 200 metres, where she is the only woman other than the world-record holder, the late Florence Griffith Joyner, to finish in under 21.5 seconds.
In Jackson’s absence, American world champion Sha’Carri Richardson, who holds the world-leading time of 10.71 seconds this year, will start as the favourite for the 100-metre gold medal.
Elaine Thompson-Herah, who won the sprint double at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and again in Tokyo, will not defend her titles. She dropped out of the Jamaican trials last month with an Achilles injury.
Jackson had been considered a top contender in the 100 metres after winning bronze in the event at the Tokyo Games and finishing second at each of the past two world championships.
Olympic debutant Tia Clayton and two-time Olympic 100-metre champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will carry Jamaica’s best medal hopes in the event.
Pryce-Jones, 37, won gold in the 100 metres in Beijing (2008) and London (2012).
Richardson favourite in 100m
However, Richardson is the current favourite. She won the event in her first world championships last summer.
The Jamaicans won all three medals in the 100 metres in Tokyo with Thompson -Herah winning gold, Pryce-Jones silver, and Jackson bronze. Only Pryce-Jones will be competing in the event in Paris.
Jamaica track and field team manager Ludlow Watts said Shashalee Forbes would replace Jackson in the 100 metres. Forbes was fourth in the 100 in 11.04 seconds at the Jamaican trials.
The preliminary rounds of the women’s 100 begin Friday. The final is set for Saturday.
Andi Sports Management released an official announcement on their Instagram account on Monday regarding a noteworthy development in Elaine Thompson-Herah’s career.
They revealed that Thompson-Herah will now receive training from Coach Reynaldo Walcott of Elite Performance Track Club, the same coach that worked with her fellow compatriot, Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce.
🚨BREAKING🚨
Elaine Thompson-Herah will be coached by Reynaldo Walcott at the Elite Performance Track Club
This is the same training group that Shelly-ann Fraser-Pryce trains
Her management additionally conveyed that the five-time Olympian expressed her profound gratitude to her supporters, recognized the support they gave during the transition, and reiterated her resolve to defend the Olympic titles she so deservedly won.
Thompson-Herah’s split with coach
Last October, the world witnessed several track and field athletes switch coaches, such as Dina Asher-Smith, Laviai and Lina Nielsen, and Kristal Awuah. Michael Johnson, a four-time Olympic gold medalist and eight-time World Champion, weighed in on the trend, suggesting that athletes may be making the switch for either ‘smart’ or ‘not-so-smart’ reasons.
Smart reasons included the athlete’s need for a new training environment, non-functioning relationships, and conflicts regarding training and techniques. Conversely, non-smart reasons included seeking a coach who can work miracles, looking for a coach who looks like a better fit, and getting bad results without understanding why.
In the case of Thompson-Herah, however, her cause doesn’t match up with any of the factors Johnson mentioned.
In a piece that appeared in The Guardian, her coach, Shanikie Osbourne, reportedly sought “excessive” compensation and refused to engage in negotiations with her management. Consequently, Thompson-Herah and her management made the decision to sever their relationship and look for a different trainer.
Although Obsourne had only been the full-time coach of the Jamaican sprinter since the summer, when she replaced Derron Herah, a former sprinter and Thompson-Herah’s husband, her impact had been undeniable as she helped the 31-year-old finish the sprinting season with a bang.
Paris Olympics
Thompson-Herah is expected to compete at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. The games will begin on July 26 and conclude on August 11.
