Jamaican Olympic sprint champion Elaine Thompson-Herah, 29, has been named the 2021 Female Athlete of the Year by the North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletics Association (NACAC). Thompson-Herah, who earned a double sprint championship at the Rio Olympics in 2016, brought historic athletic performances to the 2020 Games in Tokyo. It has been said that her 2021 season was arguably the greatest of all time, as in little more than three weeks between the end of July and the late August of that year, Thompson-Herah won two individual gold medals in Tokyo.
She won the 100-meter gold in Tokyo by setting an Olympic record of 10.61 seconds. Her 200-meter gold just four days later brought her a national record time of 21.53 seconds, the second-fastest time for that distance in history. She was also part of the Jamaican team that won the sprint relay gold medal at the Olympics. Following her spectacular performance in Tokyo, Thompson-Herah competed at the Prefontaine Classic at Eugene, Oregon’s Hayward Field, where she set a new national record in the 100-meters with a time of 10.54 seconds. This was the fastest time recorded for the 100 meters since 1988 when Florence Griffith-Joyner set the world record in the event. Thompson-Herah continued to collect sprint honors by taking her third Diamond League title with a win in the women’s 100-meter final in Zurich, clocking 10.65 seconds for the distance.
Of the five women in the 21st century who ended their season having run the fastest times in both the 100-meter and 200-meter events, four were Jamaicans; and in the 2021 season, Thompson-Herah became the first woman to repeat the achievement after her success in 2016. She broke the 10.80-second barrier 15 times, with only her fellow Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce doing so more times. Thompson-Herah has four under-10.70-second runs, however, which is one more than Griffith-Joyner.
With Thompson-Herah, Fraser-Pryce, and Shericka Jackson finishing one-two-three in the 100-meter medals in Tokyo, these three runners totaled a combined 34 runs under 11 seconds in 2021. Thompson-Herah, Fraser-Pryce, and Jackson completed the Tokyo women’s 100m medal podium, and the three Jamaicans have combined for 34 runs under 11 seconds this year.
Photo – Elaine Thompson-Herah Facebook
