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Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce: Triple World Champion in 100, 200 and 4 x 100 metres Relay Women
 Shelly-Ann
Fraser-Pryce has an exceptional athletic career till date in 2013. She is Triple
World Champion in 100, 200 and 4 x 100 metres relay for women. She was born on
December 27, 1986. She is a Jamaican track and field sprinter. Born in Kingston,
Jamaica, Fraser-Pryce ascended to prominence in the 2008 Olympic Games, when, at
21 years old, the then unknown athlete became the first Caribbean woman to win
100 m gold at the Olympics. In 2012, she successfully defended her 100m title,
becoming the third woman to win two consecutive 100m events at the Olympics.
Fraser-Pryce won the 100m gold medal in the 2009 IAAF World Championships,
becoming the second female sprinter to hold both World and Olympic 100 m titles
simultaneously (after Gail Devers). In 2013 she also became the first female
sprinter to win gold medals in the 100 m, 200 m and 4x100 m in a single world
championship. Nicknamed the "pocket rocket" for her petite frame (she stands 5
feet tall) and explosive starts, she is ranked fourth on the list of the fastest
100 m female sprinters of all time, with a personal best of 10.70 seconds, set
in Kingston, Jamaica in 2012.
Fraser, who trained for the Olympics with teammate Asafa Powell, became the
first Jamaican woman in history to win an Olympic gold medal in the 100 m
sprint. In her first round heat, she placed first in a time of 11.35 to advance
to the second round. She then improved her time to 11.06 seconds, finishing
first in her heat. In the semifinals Fraser again finished in front,
outsprinting Kerron Stewart and Muna Lee in 11.00 seconds.
In the final, Jamaican sprinters finished in the top three positions in the
race, with a photographic tie for second place by Sherone Simpson and Kerron
Stewart. (Both women were awarded silver medals; no bronze medal was awarded.)
Fraser's time of 10.78 seconds was a personal best and 0.20 seconds faster than
her Jamaican teammates. Fraser's Olympic time was the second-fastest 100 m ever
recorded by a Jamaican woman, a mere 0.04 seconds (1/25 of a second) shy of
Merlene Ottey's 10.74 record.
Together with Sheri-Ann Brooks, Aleen Bailey and Veronica Campbell-Brown, Fraser
also took part in the 4 x 100 m relay. In its first round heat, Jamaica placed
first in front of Russia, Germany and China. The Jamaica relay's time of 42.24
seconds was the first time overall out of sixteen participating nations. With
this result, Jamaica qualified for the final, replacing Brooks and Bailey with
Simpson and Stewart. Jamaica did not finish the race due to a mistake in the
baton exchange.
Fraser took the 100 m Jamaican title in June 2009, winning with a world-leading
time of 10.88 s against a strong headwind (-1.5 m/s). This made her the number
one Jamaican qualifier for the 2009 World Championships. Fraser took full
advantage, holding off a late surge (and personal best) from compatriot Kerron
Stewart, who had a slow start, to win by two one-hundredths of a second in a
time of 10.73. � the fourth fastest time in the event's history and a Jamaican
national record.
She later ran the second leg on the Jamaican 4x 100 m relay team. Fraser ran an
outstanding back-straight, outrunning athletes like Chandra Sturrup of the
Bahamas, Anne Mollinger of Germany and Kelly-Ann Baptiste of Trinidad and
Tobago, with a successful change over to Aleen Bailey. The Jamaican team
eventually claimed the gold medal in a time of 42.06 with the Bahamas claiming
silver and Germany claiming bronze.
Leading into the 2012 London Olympic Games, Fraser-Pryce improved her national
record in the 100 m to 10.70 at the Jamaican Olympic Trials. At the Games,
Fraser-Pryce successfully defended her 100 m title, beating American Carmelita
Jeter into second place in the final with a time of 10.75 seconds. Fellow
Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown took bronze.
Fraser-Pryce went on to take silver in the 200 m in a personal best time of
22.09 behind Allyson Felix. She also earned a second silver medal in the 4�100 m
relay.
 Fraser-Pryce won the 100 m race in a time of 10.71 which gave her the world
lead. It was her second World Championship in that competition after having won
the title in 2009. With teammate and title-defender Veronica Campbell-Brown
absent because of a doping ban and main competitor Allyson Felix withdrawing
halfway in the final race due to injury, Fraser-Pryce also managed to win the
200m title in a time of 22.17. It was her first major title over that distance.
As the final runner of the 4 x 100 m relay team she eventually won her third
gold medal of the competition along with her teammates Carrie Russell, Kerron
Stewart and Schillonie Calvert. Their time of 41.29 also set a new championship
record.
Fraser-Pryce served a six-month ban from athletics after a urine sample taken at
the 2010 Shanghai Diamond League meeting was found to contain a non-banned
narcotic, Oxycodone. She claimed to have been suffering from toothache, and her
coach, Stephen Francis, persuaded her to take a painkiller he was taking for
kidney stones. Fraser-Pryce said the painkiller contained the drug, but she was
unaware of this. However, Fraser-Pryce has acknowledged responsibility for her
actions, "I'm a professional athlete. One who's supposed to set examples � so
whatever it is I put in my body it's up to me to take responsibility for it and
I have done that".
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce first won the Golden Cleats Award for female Athlete of
the Year in 2010. Fraser-Pryce was awarded because of her gold medal performance
at the 2009 Berlin IAAF World Championships in the 100 meters and a gold medal
in the 4 x 100 meter relay as well. For Fraser-Pryce's outstanding
accomplishments in last year's 2012 London Olympic Games, Fraser-Pryce won the
Golden Cleats Award for female Athlete of the Year for the second time. The
awards ceremony is sponsored by the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association
in January 2013.
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is the third woman in history to repeat as the 100 meter
Olympic Champion from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and also the 2012 London
Olympics. As a result, she was awarded female Athlete of the Year in January
2013 for her gold medal performance at the 2012 London Olympic Games in the
women's 100 meters, her silver medal performance in the 200 meters and helped
the Jamaican 4 x 100 meter relay team win a silver medal. In accepting her
award, she exclaimed, "It was a long year, as it was my final year in college,
but it was a very important year for me as I wanted to repeat my title and
wanted to win. I have to give God thanks for everything that happened last
year.".
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the fastest women on earth, competed with Britain�s
Jessica Ennis, for the Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year Award. The award
recognizes sporting achievement during the year 2012.Especially recognizing
successful performances at the 2012 London Olympic Games. The winners are
determined by votes made up of 46 of the greatest sportsmen and sportswomen of
all time. The awards ceremony was televised on March 11, 2013. Shelly-Ann
Fraser-Pryce lost the award to Jessica Ennis, the gold medalist for the women�s
heptathlon in London 2012, who also won the top honour, and the Laureus Sports
Award.
Fraser was named as the first UNICEF National Goodwill Ambassador for Jamaica on
22 February 2010. On 23 February 2010, she was named Grace goodwill Ambassador
for Peace for 2010 in a partnership with Grace Foods and not-for-profit
Organisation PALS (Peace and Love in Society). In January 2011 she married
long-term boyfriend Jason Pryce, changing her name to Fraser-Pryce. She is a
committed Christian.
 Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce said the majority of athletes� comments toward her after
winning three gold medals at the World Track and Field Championships were
negative, believing she took performance-enhancing drugs this season.
�Some thought I was on drugs to have done what I did,� Fraser-Pryce, asked about
non-Jamaican athletes, told reporters in Jamaica.�I don�t know why. So the
reaction was mixed. I didn�t get any fancy hurrah. Well, some persons thought,
oh, it was nice and it was good, but the majority of athletes had their negative
comments.�
"If you understand Shelly, she's a behind-the-scenes person," her local priest
Senior Pastor Winston Jackson told Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner last year. "If
she's going to help somebody, she will do it in private. She doesn't like all
the excitement." Her work with children has a personal side to it after a
childhood that saw her grow up in a violent ghetto in Kingston -- a cousin was a
victim of it -- but where she refused to lie down and accept her lot was to just
survive.
Much of this steeliness was infused into her psyche by her mother Maxine -- who
brought her and her two brothers up on her own like so many single parents did
in the Waterhouse neighbourhood -- with the diktat being: 'you have a talent go
and use it.' "Now it's Jamaican women and children who are my inspiration," she
told the Daily Telegraph in 2009 shortly after she had added world 100m gold to
the Olympic title from Beijing.
"I see a lot of things they go through as single parents at 16 having a child
which keeps them staying in the same economic situation as their parents. They
never leave. "So I try to be an example for them, that they can still succeed. I
can try to talk to them; finish high school, don't get pregnant at a young age,
don't be hanging out on the streets. Just do your schoolwork, focus on a sport
if you're good at it, do what I did."
Fraser-Pryce, who married her long-time boyfriend Jason Pryce in 2011, will
forever be indebted to her mother and whom she was at least able to repay part
of what she owed her with the relative riches success has brought her. For money
was not even an issue in the Fraser household -- indeed household would be a
grand term to describe the shack they grew up in -- as there was often none even
for food if Maxine didn't have a successful day selling goods on the street.
"She was strict with us and worked hard as a street vendor to make sure we went
to a good school," Fraser-Pryce recalled to the Daily Telegraph.
Video
Dated 20 September 2013
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