9. MARIE-JOSEE TA LOU
2016 was the year Cote d’Ivoire’s Marie Josée Ta Lou extended her dominance to the world stage, having already established herself as one of the fastest women on the continent since winning the sprint double at the 2015 African Games in Brazzaville, and the 200m at the 2016 African Championships in Durban.
It won’t be out of place to say that no athlete came as close to winning a medal at the Rio 2016 Olympics as Ta Lou. Not only did the 28-year old get to the final of both the 100m and 200m at her maiden outing at the Games, she finished 4th in both events, narrowly missing out on a Top 3 spot.
To show how agonizingly close she came to claiming silverware in Rio, Ta Lou clocked the same time of 10.86s as the Bronze-winning Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in the 100m final. The Jamaican’s only saving grace was the fact that she had a faster reaction time. Fraser-Pryce wasn’t as lucky at an earlier meeting at the London Diamond League where she was beaten by the African who clocked a Personal Best (PB) of 10.96s twice in the course of the competition.
Ta Lou lowered her PB to 10.94s in the semis in Rio, before running another lifetime best and 4th sub-10 of the season, 10.86s in the final. She did same in the 200m, dropping her PB to 22.31s in the heats, then improving to a mark of 22.28s in the semis before breaking her time to 22.21s in the final.
The African Games double champion ended 2016 as the World No.8 in the 100m, and No.6 in the 200m rankings. Having enjoyed such a spectacular 2016, fans of the petite sprinter will be anticipating a top-notch performance from her in London 2017. Ta Lou got to the semis of the 100m/200m in Beijing two years ago. Having garnered more experience, Ta Lou is definitely one sprinter to watch out for this year.
