Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce knows more than anyone about the sacrifices needed to become a seven-time world champion.
But missing her son Zyon’s first nursery sports day in April hit particularly hard for the Jamaican sprint superstar.
“He goes to daycare and I missed his first race because I was in Grenada for my first meeting [where Fraser-Pryce opened her 2019 campaign with a sluggish 11.20 seconds] so it was very painful for me,” she said.
“My husband was at the race and he video-called me – everybody was excited, shouting ‘here comes baby rocket!’ He just stood there when they started the race, so I was like ‘What’s happening? Go! Run Zyon, run!’
“I was screaming and having a lot of fun and my husband won the parent race so we salvaged some of it. I’ll definitely do that race one day – warm up, spikes and all. I’m waiting for it now.”
It is difficult to think of a track and field athlete who personifies happiness quite as much as Fraser-Pryce, who is arguably Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith’s main threat in 100m.
Fraser-Pryce, the 2019 joint world leader over 100m, cites the distractions and joys of both motherhood and her beauty business as the reasons behind her renewed level of fitness, dazzling smile and infectious laugh.
She has returned to athletics after her maternity leave in 2017 with a more relaxed attitude to the sport, and the 32-year-old is in a promising position to add to her global medal collection at the World Championships in Doha, which start on Friday.
Having scorched to 2008 Olympic 100m glory at the tender age of 21, the 5ft tall Fraser-Pryce went on to retain her Olympic crown in 2012, before claiming bronze at the 2016 Games to become the first woman in history to win three consecutive Olympic 100m medals. She is also the first woman to win three World Championship 100m titles, courtesy of victories in 2009, 2013 and 2015, and is the fourth-fastest 100m runner of all time with a blistering 10.70, which she clocked in 2012.
For all that she has achieved on the track, the Kingston native says her greatest achievement is her son.
