Melissa Jefferson-Wooden Pays Glowing Tribute to Sprint Icon Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden praised Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s legacy, calling it surreal to share the stage with the sprint icon.

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden became the second woman, after Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, to win the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay, a feat she achieved at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, Japan.

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden announced her arrival on the world stage with the 100m, where she clocked 10.61 seconds to win the world title and become the fourth fastest woman in the world.

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden then went ahead to win the women’s 200m and crowned her campaign with the 4x100m victory.

This success had only ever been achieved by one woman, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who completed a triple at the 2013 World Athletics Championships in Moscow.

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden revealed that before she started her career, she had watched Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce several times.

Jefferson-Wooden added that when Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce won her first world title, at 23, it was a defining moment not just for the Jamaican but for all those who always looked up to her.

Two years before, at 21, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce competed in the women’s 4x100m relay at the World Championships in Osaka, winning a silver medal.

Melissa Jefferson-Wooden pointed out that she resonates with a lot of things that Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce went through before becoming a world champion.

“Shelly-Ann set the bar really high, and as a little girl watching her do what she did, at the age of 21, in a field where nobody probably saw her winning, I feel like, in a sense, I’m kind of living in that same journey obviously, but in my own way,” Melissa Jefferso-Wooden said in an interview with Television Jamaica.

“However, to just see her dominate for long and see what she has done for women’s sprints, it just means a lot. I’ve looked up to her growing up, and to be able to share the same stages with her, to just try and follow in her footsteps in a sense, is also surreal.”

With Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce hanging up her spikes, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden aims to carry the torch and lift sprinting to new heights.