The Olympic 100m champion opens up about equipping herself to have the ability to win sprinting’s biggest prize
When AW catches up with Julien Alfred, she has been squeezing some London sightseeing into an itinerary full of private appearances. The 23-year-old is on the town due to her new position as a tourism ambassador to Saint Lucia, serving to to unfold the phrase to the world in regards to the small Caribbean nation of round 180,000 inhabitants from which she hails.
It’s a pure match. Alfred is the nation’s most excessive profile sporting export, in spite of everything, having develop into the primary Saint Lucian ever to win a medal at a world athletics championships – taking 60m gold on the World Indoors in Glasgow again in March. If that weren’t sufficient trigger for celebration, then a nationwide vacation was declared when Olympic 100m gold and 200m silver medals then got here her means this summer time – performances that every one helped her to come back out on prime within the voting for AW’s Worldwide Feminine Athlete of the 12 months.
“Julien Alfred Day” was celebrated on September 27 because the fruits of a four-day lengthy commemoration of her achievements. Requested to call essentially the most memorable second she has skilled since dispatching the world’s biggest feminine sprinters in such emphatic model on the purple monitor within the pouring rain on the Stade de France and Alfred takes little time to reply.
“I feel simply the affect that I’ve had on a rustic,” she says. “[Seeing] a rustic coming collectively, united, and simply celebrating the gold.” Tellingly, although, she provides: “However I’ve one thing to dwell to this point, as properly.”
Julien Alfred (Getty)
Coping with the best of expectations is a talent Alfred has needed to purchase shortly in 2024. The yr has not been one stable straight line of gold-tinted glory. She landed in Saint Lucia to a hero’s welcome after that world indoors win and was feted like a conquering hero. For somebody whose early experiences of athletics had concerned working barefoot and infrequently coaching in her college uniform, it was loads to absorb. The medal made a big effect in additional methods than one.
Alfred is predicated in Texas, the place she trains underneath the steering of coach Edrick Floreal and as a part of the sprints group that additionally comprises Britain’s former world 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith, in addition to burgeoning Irish expertise Rhasidat Adeleke. It was following a race in Austin throughout the early levels of the out of doors season the place the 2022 Commonwealth 100m silver medallist realised all was not properly.
“It was April after I simply felt like I wasn’t myself,” she says. “Each time I stepped out on the monitor I felt like there was this heavy weight on my shoulders that I simply actually couldn’t deal with.
“With it [world indoors gold] being Saint Lucia’s first medal, now they had been anticipating a lot from me throughout that point. As an alternative of me specializing in doing it for myself first, being the one who’s been placing within the laborious work and making the sacrifices, I used to be pondering: ‘I don’t need to disappoint my folks. I don’t need to disappoint Saint Lucia’. I feel that’s actually the way it took place, after profitable the world indoors.”
Olympic girls’s 100m remaining (Getty)
Alfred admits to having had one thing approaching a breakdown however step one she took in an effort to vary issues round was each easy and courageous. “Speaking to my coach and expressing precisely how I felt,” she says. “He understood and he labored with me patiently to get me prepared for the Olympics. He took me off the monitor, we labored mentally and bodily to get me again to the place I’m at present.”
Certainly, between the start of Could and the opening 100m warmth of the Paris Olympics on August 2, Alfred raced simply 5 instances, however by the point the largest competitors of her life arrived she felt outfitted for the duty.
Whereas the primary collection of the Netflix documentary SPRINT had educated its sights on the rivalry between the likes of 200m world champion Shericka Jackson and world 100m champion Sha’Carri Richardson, not a lot consideration had been paid to the Saint Lucian with the steely glare.
It wasn’t that world indoor title that made Alfred really feel like she may very well be a real contender. It was the Olympic semi-final, when she overcame Richardson with relative ease, that introduced with it the indicators she had been in search of.
Julien Alfred (Getty)
There was additional exterior noise to dam out, although. Forward of the ultimate, the media started to swirl with tales as each the American and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce struggled with getting previous safety into the warm-up areas, the Jamaican two-time 100m Olympic champion in the end becoming a member of her compatriot Jackson in having to withdraw by way of damage.
As soon as the line-up for the Parisian showdown had been confirmed, there was additionally a pre-race deluge to cope with that left the monitor glistening and coated with floor water. The circumstances solely served to intensify the sensation of drama and, because the digital camera panned alongside the road of 100m finalists, Richardson seemed fearful. To her left and within the adjoining lane, Alfred seemed fearsome.
In reality, the competition was settled from the earliest levels as Alfred flew from the blocks and opened a considerable hole that might not be closed as she hit the road in 10.72, to Richardson’s 10.87 and the ten.92 of Melissa Jefferson in third.
Julien Alfred (Getty)
“When you understand what you’re there for, when you understand your function, you simply can’t enable your self to get distracted,” says Alfred. “With all that was taking place in Paris all I needed to do was keep in mind why I used to be there, give attention to simply executing my very own race plan and never fear about anybody else.”
Alfred has watched the race again on quite a few events and, regardless of it being such a command efficiency, she admits to not being solely pleased with it. The work has already begun with “Coach Flo” forward of the 2025 World Championships (Alfred has unfinished enterprise there after ending fifth and fourth within the 100m and 200m respectively in Budapest final yr).
“I don’t suppose there’s something specifically that I’d change [about the Olympic final],” says Alfred. “I imply, it occurred the way it was purported to and I can’t change that now, however I feel, going to the world championships subsequent yr, there are fairly a couple of issues that I’ve to work on with my coach. There’s at all times one thing to work on. No one’s excellent.”
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