A crazy ending to the main women’s race at the Olympic Games. First a scandal, then a sensation!
Tatyana Postnikova August 3, 2024, 22:55 Moscow time Audio version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
One of the medal hopefuls was not allowed into the stadium, the second sensationally lost to a girl from a country she had never heard of before.
The women’s 100m was supposed to be one of the main athletics events of the Olympics. And so it happened. But this did not happen because of the cold battle between Sha’Karri Richardson and Shelley-Ann Fraser-Pryce, but because of a loud scandal and then a sensation. It turned out that the guards did not allow one of the main stars of the Games to warm up for a stupid reason!
But everything went wrong for the other contender.
“You changed the rules and didn’t tell us?”
The 100-meter race at the Olympics attracted special attention even before the start. The main reason is the battle between Jamaican Shelley-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who is hosting her last Olympics, and the outrageous American Sha’Carri Richardson, who made her debut at the Games.
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But the start was marred by a huge scandal. Videos have appeared on the Internet showing security guards not allowing the Jamaican and US teams to warm up because they arrived at the stadium in their own transport and not on the team bus. However, as Fraser-Price says, there were no such rules previously.
“Are you saying that if an athlete doesn’t live in the Olympic Village they can’t go and warm up? Why was everything fine yesterday when I walked past the guards? So you changed the rules last night and didn’t tell us? That’s crazy,” Shelley-Ann says.
The destruction of the Olympic dream
Before the end, the situation took a very dramatic turn. Despite reaching the semi-finals, the legendary Fraser-Pryce withdrew from the competition. The Jamaican herself did not explain the reasons, but many assumed that it was related to the daytime incident. Jamaican media, however, write that the athlete had to withdraw due to a hamstring injury.
Fans were shocked, because it is impossible to imagine the 100m final at the Olympic Games without Shelley-Ann. Fraser-Pryce has competed for medals at the Games for the past 16 years – at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2012 London Olympics, the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The last time the 100m final was held without the Jamaican legend was in 2004.
As a result, Fraser-Pryce was left without her coveted fifth Olympic medal in the 100m. Shelley-Ann will of course still have a chance of winning the prize – she is entered in the 4x100m relay – but that is another matter entirely.
Richardson somehow managed to storm into the stadium, making it to the semi-finals and qualifying for the final. It looked like victory was in her pocket, but Sha’Karri (10.87) sensationally took second. Julienne Alfred (10.72) from Saint Lucia unexpectedly won and took the first Games medal in the country’s history.
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The Games’ organising committee and World Athletics have yet to comment on the situation, and the athletes themselves have not given any details of what happened. If Richardson and Fraser-Pryce were not allowed into the stadium precisely because they did not arrive on the Olympic bus but alone, this is sheer madness. The accommodation of athletes outside the Olympic village, as well as their travelling to the arenas by personal transport rather than by team transport, is common practice at the Olympic Games.
Even in Paris, many athletes live outside the village. Tennis players from different countries, including Daniil Medvedev and Novak Djokovic, and the US basketball team have openly declared this. And all these athletes were and are allowed to quietly enter the arenas every day. Why things turned out differently with Richardson and Fraser-Pryce is a big question that calls into question the competence of the organizers of the Paris Games.
