(Athletics news): Shelly Ann Fraser Pryce is a three time Olympic Gold Medallist and 9 time gold medallist at the World Championships. She has been on the Athletics headlines for the past 13 years. She has constantly broken the 11 second barrier in the 100m and doesn’t seem to be slowing down as this year she was featured 5 times in top 10 fastest timings. She is known as the Pocket Rocket as she is five feet tall.

Fraser is 34 years old and many of her rivals are younger to her but that doesn't slow her down. Four of her top 10 races have come this year and she has run the sub 11 times a  65 times. She also was unbeaten in 10 consecutive races from 30th may 2015 to 6th september 2015 and repeated it four years later when she had a 9 race winning streak from September till August 2020. Two of her fastest timing has come this year and ran 10.60s a week ago which is the third fastest of all time.

After Florence Griffith Joyner set the world record in Women’s 100m in 1988, her record is now in danger especially this year as Fraser and Elaine Thompson have come real close to the record. Age has never caught up with Fraser and had a small break when she was pregnant in 2017 but came back for training a few months later in 2018 in the 9th race since her comeback she posted a sub 11 100m, this showed the perseverance and the domination by the athlete in the sport.

Fraser won the 2008 Beijing Olympics 100m and defended it in the London 2012 Olympics. She finished third in 2016 Rio Olympics and won the silver in this year’s Tokyo Olympics. She has finished in the top three of the 100m since the 2008 Olympics and is a 14 time Diamond League winner. One of her famous rivalries was with US Sprinter Carmelita Jeter, they both ran 33 races together over a period of 8 years and Fraser won 19 of them.

Fraser has never really been challenged until the arrival of Double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson. The latest rivalry which has seen them dominate the top 10 fastest timings this year with only Sha'Carri Richardson being the other in the list. Fraser and Elaine have faced each other 12 times with Elaine leading with 9 victories. The impact of Elaine has been seen in Fraser as her timing has improved vastly. Retirement questions have been arising but her recent performances indicate there is more to come and she is hungry for more.

Also read: Elaine Thompson inches closer to record breaking time in Women’s 100m