Fraser-Pryce back on top, leads Jamaican sweep in 100 meters

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce sped her way back to the top of the sprint game Sunday, winning her fifth world title at 100 meters by leading a Jamaican sweep and knocking off Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah.

The 35-year-old Fraser-Pryce, mother of a 4-year-old son, Zyon, led all the way and crossed the line in 10.67 seconds. She beat Shericka Jackson by 0.06 seconds while Thompson-Herah finished a surprising third in 10.81.

A night that started with thoughts that Thompson-Herah might knock off Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 34-year-old world record of 10.49 closed instead with Fraser-Pryce setting a world-championships record. Marion Jones set the old mark of 10.70 in 1999.

With her blonde and green-tinted hair waving in the breeze as she worked through her victory lap, Fraser-Pryce was all smiles — a different reaction than last year in Tokyo, when she finished second by a sizable 0.13.

“I went back home and I worked and I worked and I came out here, and I had the success,” a beaming Fraser-Pryce said in her on-track interview.

She’ll add it to titles she won in 2009, ’13, ‘15 and ’19. She also won the Olympics in 2008 and 2012.

A night after the U.S. swept the podium in the men’s 100, Fraser-Pryce and Co., showed there’s still plenty of speed down on the island.

Usain Bolt won three world titles at 100 meters over his decade of dominance. Fraser-Pryce now has five over a span that dates to 2009 in Berlin, the worlds at which Bolt set the men’s 100 record of 9.58 that still stands.

Fraser-Pryce defended her title from 2019, a win that came not long after she had a baby. She called that “a victory for motherhood.”

Zyon is about the same age as Allyson Felix’s daughter, Cammy, and though Fraser-Pryce was never as outspoken as Felix about the challenges facing moms, she told the story of sitting on her bed and crying the day she learned she was pregnant. People suggested her career was over.

Not by a long shot.

Since having Zyon she has won two world titles and lowered her personal best to 10.6 — putting her alongside Thompson-Herah and Flo Jo as the only women to have run so fast.

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