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.