Jamaican Sprinter Fraser-Pryce to Retire after Paris 2024

Athletics - World Athletics Championship - Women's 100m Final - National Athletics Center, Budapest, Hungary - August 21, 2023 Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce celebrates after winning bronze. (Reuters)
Athletics - World Athletics Championship - Women's 100m Final - National Athletics Center, Budapest, Hungary - August 21, 2023 Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce celebrates after winning bronze. (Reuters)
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Jamaican Sprinter Fraser-Pryce to Retire after Paris 2024

Athletics - World Athletics Championship - Women's 100m Final - National Athletics Center, Budapest, Hungary - August 21, 2023 Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce celebrates after winning bronze. (Reuters)
Athletics - World Athletics Championship - Women's 100m Final - National Athletics Center, Budapest, Hungary - August 21, 2023 Jamaica's Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce celebrates after winning bronze. (Reuters)

Three-time Olympic champion sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will retire after the 2024 Paris Olympics, saying she owes it to her family.

Fraser-Pryce was the first 100m sprinter to win individual medals in four consecutive Olympic Games. The Jamaican began her journey in Beijing 2008, which saw her become the first Caribbean woman to win gold in the women's 100m.

She held on to her 100m title in London 2012, joining a select few to have done so. Despite battling a toe injury, she won bronze in 2016 Rio Olympics and a silver in relay.

After giving birth in 2017, she won another Olympic silver and a relay gold in Tokyo 2020.

"My son needs me, my husband and I have been together since before I won in 2008. He has sacrificed for me," 37-year-old Fraser-Pryce told Essence.com.

"We're a partnership, a team, and it's because of that support that I'm able to do the things that I have been doing for all these years," she added. "I think I now owe it to them to do something else."

Currently, she is focused on preparing for Paris, which she views as an opportunity to push boundaries.

It is about "showing people that you stop when you decide. I want to finish on my own terms," she said.

In 2019, she became the oldest woman to claim the 100m World Championship title in Doha. She further solidified this achievement by winning the title again at the age of 35 in Eugene in 2022, 14 years after her initial Olympic gold triumph.

"It's not enough that we step on a track and we win medals. You have to think about the next generation that's coming after you, and give them the opportunity to also dream - and dream big," Fraser-Pryce said.



‘Flooding Rains’ Threaten to Dampen Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony

Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)
Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)
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‘Flooding Rains’ Threaten to Dampen Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony

Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)
Paris 2024 Olympics - Opening Ceremony - Paris, France - July 26, 2024. Spectators are seen behind the Eiffel Tower ahead of the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympics. (Reuters)

The Paris Olympics look likely to get off to a soggy start.

Meteo-France, the French weather service, is predicting “flooding rains” Friday evening when the opening ceremony is set to unroll along the Seine River. But the show is set to go on as planned, starting at 1:30 p.m. EDT/7:30 p.m. CEST and should last more than three hours.

Already in the late afternoon, skies were gray with intermittent drizzle. There was a silver lining, though, with temperatures expected to stay relatively warm throughout the evening.

Instead of a traditional march into a stadium, about 6,800 athletes will parade on more than 90 boats on the Seine River for 6 kilometers (3.7 miles). Though 10,700 athletes are expected to compete at these Olympics, hundreds of soccer players are based outside Paris, surfers are in Tahiti and many have yet to arrive for their events in the second week, organizers said Thursday.

Hundreds of thousands of people, including 320,000 paying and invited ticket-holders, are expected to line the Seine’s banks as athletes are paraded along the river on boats.