Spotlight on Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

As the World Athletics Awards 2022 draws near, World Athletics has been shining the spotlight on the finalists for the World Athlete of the Year awards.
The World Athletes of the Year will be announced on World Athletics’ social media platforms in early December, as part of the World Athletics Awards 2022.
Jamaican Olympian Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is one of five women finalists for the prestigious award.
To put Fraser-Pryce’s “incredible consistency” in 2022 into context, World Athletics said on Thursday that just five women in history have ever broken 10.70 for 100m.
“Fraser-Pryce surpassed that mark seven times throughout the season and one of those performances – her 10.67 in Oregon – saw the Jamaican become the first athlete to win five world titles in a single individual running event,” World Athletics said. “In her 15th season of international racing, the 35-year-old sprint star continued to blaze a trail.”
World Athletics said Fraser-Pryce started her year with a 200m race in Kingston, the Jamaican capital, before opening her 100m campaign “in style” in Nairobi.
Running 10.67 – a time she would match on three other occasions in the months to follow – Fraser-Pryce achieved the fastest ever women’s 100m season opener, World Athletics.
“It set the tone for all that was to come,” said World Athletics, adding that a time of 10.67 also secured her victory at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Paris in June before she turned her attention to the Jamaican Championships and then the World Athletics Championships Oregon22.
Back on the global stage, World Athletics said she raced seven times in eight days and won three medals – her fifth world 100m crown followed by silver medals in the 200m and 4x100m to take her career tally of global medals to 23, with 14 of those being gold.
In Oregon, World Athletics said Fraser-Pryce “led a Jamaican sweep of the medals in what was the deepest ever women’s World Championships 100m final, as seven of the eight finalists dipped under 11 seconds.”
“I feel blessed to have this talent and to continue to do it at 35, (after) having a baby, still going, and hopefully inspiring women that they can make their own journey,” World Athletics quoted Fraser-Pryce as saying.
After that, World Athletics said Fraser-Pryce’s own journey continued at the Diamond League meeting in Silesia, where she again “dipped under 10.70 with a winning 10.66.”
She then ran 10.67 to win in Szekesfehervar and improved her world lead to 10.62 – “a time that only she and two other athletes have ever bettered – to win in Monaco,” World Athletics said.
It said she clocked 10.74 for the runner-up spot in Brussels and returned to the top in Zurich, clocking 10.65 to win the fifth Diamond Trophy of her career.
“I am very proud that I came away with a 10.65,” Fraser-Pryce said. “I started (the season) with a 10.6 and I finish with a 10.6. So, there is nothing more I could ask for.”