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.
The world champion is still set to compete in the 200m which starts on 4 August.#BBCOlympics #Olympics #Paris2024 pic.twitter.com/7VLiBHaOZo
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 31, 2024
She will run 200m
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.
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