Jamaica Sweeps Women's 100m Final at the Olympics - Thompson takes Gold

This evening in Tokyo, Olympic history was made in the women's 100 meter final.

Elaine Thompson at Rio 2016 Olympic Games

In a time of 10.61s, Elaine Thompson-Herah won the Gold at the 2020 Olympic Games. Her time secured her not only the gold, but created a new Olympic Record.

Thompson-Herah had a phenomenal race. She began with an explosive start out of the blocks. As she moved into her build up phase, she continued to gain speed, while keeping impeccable form. Hitting her top speed at about 70 meters into the race, she outpaced the 6x Olympic Medalist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in the last few meters to win the gold medal.

This is now the second fastest women's 100m time in history. Second only to Florence Griffith-Joyner's 10.49 seconds from 1988. This blazing run also now gives Thompson-Herah the title of fastest woman alive.

Her teammates, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson, took silver and bronze, respectively, to secure a Jamaican sweep. This is the second time the Jamaican women have swept this event. In Beijing 2008, Jamaica dominated the women's 100m at the Olympic Games securing gold, silver, and bronze.

Although Fraser-Pryce was not able to defend her 100 meter Olympic champion titles from Rio, London, and Beijing, she finished second with a time of 10.74s. Her silver medal comes with an impressive backstory. Thirteen years after her Olympic debut, she has been able to avoid injury that has prevented her from competing and maintain her elite performance. Moreover, in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, she competes as a mother, having given birth to her son in 2017. At 34, several years after most have retired, this is a truly remarkable feat.

The bronze medalist, Shericka Jackson, also gave an impressive performance with an intriguing road to victory. She is one of the few women who have run below 50 seconds in the 400 meters, sub 22 in the 200, and below 11 seconds in the 100m. Her specialty is in the 400m, where she won bronze medals at the 2016 Olympics, 2015 World Championships and 2019 World Championships in this event. For the 2021 season, she switched her focus to the 100m and 200m. Finishing with a new personal best of 10.76s, it seems this switch was a great choice.

This win is in incredible display of the dominance of Jamaica's running program. And a wonderful showcase of how when given the opportunity and the means, the world’s best can emerge from anywhere.