Even though she came to the Olympic Games as the world’s fastest woman, having set a Personal Best (PB) and Season’s Best (SB) of 10.70s at the Jamaican Trials, not many expected Elaine Thompson to dominate the stacked 100m field in Rio, which had some of the world’s fastest women ever.
However the 23-year old totally outclassed her rivals, denying teammate Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce the privilege of becoming the first woman in history to win three consecutive GOLD medals in the women’s 100m.
Thompson raced to her first Olympic title in style, clocking an impressive time of 10.71s to take GOLD, as USA’s Tori Bowie came from behind to snatch Silver in 10.83s, while defending champion Fraser-Pryce settled for Bronze in 10.86s, edging out Cote dÍvoire’s Marie Josee Ta Lou who also clocked the same time.
Beijing 2015 200m Champion Dafne Schippers (10.90s) could only manage 5th position, with Michelle-Lee Ahye (10.92s), English Gardner (10.94s) and Christania Williams (11.80s) placing 6th, 7th and 8th respectively.
It is safe to say that Fraser-Pryce has certainly found a worthy successor in Thompson who has demonstrated that she has all it takes to dominate on the world stage after narrowly missing out on the GOLD medal in the women’s 200m at the 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing.
Incidentally, Thompson had looked a bit rusty in the 100m heats the day before, winning Heat 7 in a time of 11.21s. However she looked smoother in the semis, taking the lead in Heat 3 to finish ahead of World No.2 English Gardner (10.90s) in a time of 10.88s.
Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare placed 3rd in the race, clocking a time of 11.09s, which wasn’t fast enough to get her any of the fastest losers spots which went to Christania Williams (10.96s) and Ta Lou (10.94s). Incidentally, the time was a PB for Ta Lou who eventually lowered her time by two hundredths of a second in the final to finish 4th.
Her mentor and more experienced teammate Murielle Ahoure wasn’t as lucky though. The Moscow 2013 Double Silver medallist placed 4th in Heat 1 of the semis won by Tori Bowie in 10.90s, thereby failing to make it to the final.
It remains to be seen how many of these ladies would be gunning for revenge when the 200m kicks off in a few days.
