Elaine Thompson-Herah: The fastest woman alive — or ever?
There's a valid argument to be made that the Tokyo Olympic champion tied the legitimate world record in the 100 meters.
Track and fans didn’t even need coffee this morning.
Tuning in to the women’s 100m dash Olympic final was enough to jolt me straight out of bed as Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica won the highly anticipated women’s 100-meter dash with an incredible 10.61 (-0.6) to break the 33-year-old Olympic record of 10.62 previously held by Florence Griffith-Joyner.
That Thompson-Herah won, and not her compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, was somewhat of an upset as Fraser-Pryce made headlines at the beginning of June for clocking 10.63, which made her at that time the second-fastest woman in world history. But in the race of the “Mommy Rocket” vs. the reigning Olympic champion, it was no contest. Fraser-Pryce, already a two-time Olympic champion in this event, was actually the fastest out of the blocks, but no match for Thompson-Herah over the final half of the race as the 29-year-old celebrated and pointed at the finish line once she was clear of the field.
In a live television interview with the BBC after today’s Olympic final, Fraser-Pryce said she “had a stumble and I never recovered from it” which could explain how Thompson-Herah so easily powered away after her superior start.
Fraser-Pryce earned silver in 10.74 while Shericka Jackson ran 10.76 for bronze to secure the Jamaican sweep. Notably, their reaction after the race was less than enthused for their compatriot, which sparked some murmurings of bad blood among Track Twitter and will be interesting to see play out when they have to team up for the 4x100-meter relay later this Games, which by all accounts should certainly result in a new world record.
How does Thompson-Herah measure up against Flo-Jo?
Florence Griffith-Joyner (aka Flo-Jo) set her incredible world records of 10.49 and 21.34 and won her Olympic double in the span of a few months in 1988, and it’s taken until now for anyone to seriously challenge her legacy.
There’s Only One Flo-Jo: Everything You Need to Know About the Fastest Woman of All Time
While rumors of performance-enhancing drug use always dogged her career, it’s actually more likely that the 100-meter time was the result of a faulty wind gauge — in which case, her next-fastest wind-legal time was 10.61, the same time that Thompson-Herah ran today in Tokyo. Let’s also mention here that Thompson-Herah ran her time into a headwind of 0.6, which means she could have run 10.57 in still conditions or even *wait for it* 10.47 with a 2.0 tailwind, according to LetsRun’s Jonathan Gault.
Expect more fireworks in the women’s 200-meter final as Thompson-Herah aims to replicate her 2016 Rio sprint double versus Gabby Thomas, who won the U.S. Olympic Trials in 22.61 — the fastest time since, once again, Griffith-Joyner in 1988.
You’re going to hear Flo-Jo’s name a lot this week, which is why Women’s Running asked me to write this in-depth explainer on all things Flo-Jo. She has an incredible story and I really hope the upcoming movie starring Tiffany Haddish does her justice.
Flo-Jo’s legacy is due to one standout season and her stranglehold over the record books for the past 33 years. But if you measure greatness in longevity and total titles, there is already an argument to be made that both Fraser-Pryce and Thompson-Herah have surpassed her. The 34-year-old Fraser-Pryce is a six-time global champion in the 100m and seven-time Olympic medalist (on track for eight), while Thompson-Herah is already halfway to a historic two-time Olympic sprint double.
NBC broadcaster Ato Boldon said as much when I talked to him for the Women’s Running story — although he favored Fraser-Pryce over Thompson-Herah.
“What everybody remembers about Flo-Jo is she had one great season,” he said.
“The performance has created a situation where even thinking about not considering Flo-Jo as the best sprinter to have walked the face of the earth is almost seen as blasphemy... Flo-Jo has the fastest time, 1988 might even be the fastest season as a sprinter, but wait one second — that’s not how we judge athletes. Nobody would say that about Jordan or Gretsky or Brady… Djokovic.. what’s the barometer we use? Championships, how do you do when everybody’s watching? That young lady Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce has two Olympic titles... she has four world titles...
“‘Oh, Flo-Jo’s the greatest,’ and you go, ‘why?’ You wouldn’t use that criteria to judge any other athlete’s career... in 2019, I said Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce got her fourth world title, not even Usain Bolt has that...give her her flowers.”
When asked if any active athletes had a chance to break Flo-Jo’s world records, he said the 100m was possible, but probably not the 200m.
“There is only one person capable of breaking it in the 100m,” he said. “I give Elaine Thompson a much smaller chance. The race model to break that record is more likely to come from Shelly-Ann. It has to be a big big start, a ferocious middle and you have to hang on.”
The post-COVID competition year overall has produced record times from all event areas, and a changing tune on what might be possible in athletics.
“I’m happy for them because I’ve interviewed enough of them to know that that’s one of the great frustrations on the women’s side, that the records are unapproachable,” Boldon said. “They’ve watched Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell get the worldwide acclaim and legendary status for having broken one or more world records and it was always, ‘well, that will never happen to me.’”
It may actually happen sooner than we thought.
Odds and ends
A few bullet points to wrap up this women’s 100m report:
Let’s first give a quick shout-out to Texas ex Teahna Daniels, the 2019 U.S. champion, who was the only American to make the final and placed seventh in her first Olympics this morning (or, for her, tonight??, in Tokyo).
Nigeria’s Blessing Okagbare, a potential medal threat after running a wind-aided 10.63 this season, was provisionally suspended yesterday for testing positive for human growth hormone and did not compete. In previous days, the Nigerian athletics contingent had protested against their governing body in the Olympic village after ten athletes were barred from competition because they did not undergo enough drug testing.
I know the question everyone is wondering… How would Sha’Carri Richardson, now the most famous track athlete on the planet, have placed in this race? I would slot her in for bronze behind Elaine and SAFP. Remember that her fastest wind-legal time was 10.72. Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to see how these women actually stack up against each other in the Diamond League races later this summer. Richardon is scheduled to compete in Eugene, Ore. at the Prefontaine Classic in both the 100m and 200m in August, though the rest of the fields will not be finalized until after the Olympics.
Big shout-out to the fact that no shortage of drama and storylines in the women’s 100m all year made this a bigger draw than the men’s race. Bravo, ladies.
Trying to watch every second of the Olympics has severely derailed my run start times this week and now I’m looking at starting a 17-miler after noon on the last day of July in Austin, Texas (or pushing to tomorrow? but i have an 8 a.m. flight! idk!)… Apologies to Katie and Camila for once again sleeping through my alarm this morning, and we’ll see how this goes.
