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Six steps to reach the Tokyo-Finish Line, Elaine Thompson Hella sticks out her left arm and begins pointing at the watch as she walks down the track.
She knew she had won.
It was just a matter of what else came with it.
The latest in the Jamaican Speedster long line was 10.61 seconds in time, defending her Olympic title at 100 meters on Saturday. She broke the 33-year-old Olympic record held by Florence Griffith Joyner. And, as a worthy bonus, she first revisited the debate caused by Usain Bolt, the fastest Jamaican of all.
Yes, the gold medal and Florence’s venerable record was great. But the question was inevitable. Thompson Hera ran 100 meters hard, as people wondered what Bolt gave up when Bolt hot doged to the finish line in his first Olympic victory in 2008. Then how fast did you run? Isn’t it just 90 meters or 95 meters?
“I think I could have gone faster if I hadn’t really pointed and celebrated,” she said. “But I’ll show you a lot more. I hope someday I can unleash that time.”
As it was, she ended the night as the second fastest woman in history. Florence’s 10.49 world record is just the mark left to win.
As it was, she defeated two-time Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser Price and joined bronze medalist Shericka Jackson in the first Jamaican podium sweep at the Olympics since 2008.
“The legacy we have in Jamaica is incredible,” Fraser Price said.
Still, as it all swirls, Thompson-Hella redefines the sprint game with his antiques, not to mention his speed, and depicts a comparison with Bolt, who left a hole in the track and field after he left. I felt it was perfect. In the 2016 Olympic scene, I won nine sprints and nine victories.
In his first win, the 6-foot-5 Speedster was well away from the Beijing field when he began the celebration with his hands on both sides before reaching the finish line. His time 9.69 was a world record. But the world went crazy. IOC President Jacques Rogge at the time leveled sharp criticism of the move. I suspected that Bolt had broken it across the line.
He answered this question a year later when he lowered the mark to 9.58 at the World Championships in Berlin.
Thompson-Herah believes she will also have such an opportunity.
“I have more years,” she said. “I’m 29. I’m not 30. I’m not 40. I’m still working.”
On a sultry night at the almost empty Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, Thompson Hera began to pull away from her top rival Fraser Price early on. By the 50-meter mark, it was a runaway. She won the true rout in the 100-meter final in 0.13 seconds, or about three bodies long.
Jackson, a 400-meter bronze medalist who participated in the short-distance run of the Tokyo Olympics five years ago, also won the bronze medal at 10.76.
Florence’s 10.62 old mark appeared at the 1988 Seoul Olympics shortly after she ran 10.49 on a refreshing day in Indianapolis. For decades, the debate over whether Mark is legal has intensified, and the longer Mark is held, the more amazing the record looks.
Since then, no Olympic champion has beaten 10.7 by Flo Jo. Thompson-Herah argued that as he approached the finish, he wasn’t sure if he would be either. But she said, “I knew I had won.”
“Pointing, I don’t know what that means, to show that I’m clear,” she said.
Thompson-Herah is now firmly established in the long list of Jamaican women’s track stars. It is a character string that is even more impressive than men. The Caribbean island had great figures such as Merleen Otti and Veronica Campbell Brown there long before Fraser Price moved to the center stage at the age of 21 when he faced a brace in Beijing.
She took the lead in the 2008 race, finishing in second place and completing the Olympic set at 100. Currently she has won two gold medals (’08 and ’12), this silver medal and the 2016 bronze medal.
However, she was a little stunned to finish much later than her main rivals on the track that produced the fastest times in the first two days of the competition.
After Thompson-Hella’s hot dogs watched to the end, the woman they called “Mama Rocket” was a three-year-old son, Zeon, staring at the scoreboard, making a stone face, holding hands and on the truck. I was standing. Her waist.
She is a favorite player, showing that she remains at the top about two years after winning the World Championship title in 2019, with a strength of 10.63, mainly running in June. did.
“Of course, you’re disappointed,” said Fraser Price, whose title in Doha was a comeback story, just two years after her pregnancy. “The only purpose for athletes to line up is to win.”
Even the defending Olympic champions didn’t see this coming. While Fraser Price was at its peak, Thompson Hera was less than that and fought her late Achilles tendon injury throughout the Jamaican National Championship last month.
“Two months ago, maybe a month and a half ago, I didn’t expect to be here today,” Thompson Hera said. “I stayed calm. I believed in myself.”
In the absence of American Shakari Richardson, at home for positive doping against smoking marijuana in the U.S. Olympic trial, 100 women are potentially Olympic potential prior to the boltless men’s sprint Shaped as the best race.
As if to emphasize that point, men’s sprinter Trayvon Bromell finished fourth in the evening qualifying heat and nearly an hour to see if he could win one of the three wildcard spots. I had to wait. For the semi-final round on Sunday.
He said, “Honestly, I have no words about it.”
Another surprise was the Olympic debut of the mixed 4×400 relay. Poland won the gold medal and the Dominican Republic’s Alejandel Ogand spread across the line, hunting down the Americans in second place.
Another medal event at night was the men’s discus, with Daniel Ståhl and Simon Petition leading the one-on-two Swedish finish. During the celebration in front of an empty stand, the Swedes put a flag on their shoulders and jogged down the back stretch on the grass.
Shortly thereafter, the actual run began, and Thompson Hera realized that she was in a familiar place, initially at the Olympics, but the time women had never seen on this stage was 10.61.
Next is 200, and Thompson Hera is also a defending champion. It’s not hard to imagine her going out of the Olympics as Bolt always did. Three gold medals, some unanswered questions, and track fans still want more.
By Eddie Pells
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