Thompson Herah nominated for Female Athlete of the Year

Elaine Thompson Herah in a running position
Elaine Thompson Herah in a running position (Photo credit: Instagram (@fastelaine))

Elaine Thompson Herah, undeniably, has cemented herself as one of the greatest female sprinters of all time. This year, with her tremendous achievements, she has been nominated among ten women for World Athletics’ Female of the Year.

Interestingly, Thompson Herah, for a second, almost did not feature at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, which saw her taking gold in the women’s 100m, 200m and the 4X100m relays, respectively. Admittedly, at the time, she confessed that she was suffering from an Achilles injury leading up to the Jamaica National Championships held in June.

The 29-year-old finished third in both her sprint events at the Jamaica National Championship, which raised a few eyebrows in the athletics sphere but qualifying for the Olympics was her primary target, and for that she said she was thankful.

A sprint legend in the making, Thompson Herah’s historic run at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and subsequently at the Diamond League events could not have gone unnoticed: first woman to defend both the 100m and 200m at consecutive Olympic games, smashing her personal best several times and becoming the fastest woman alive.

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Piggybacking on her reign of terror at the Rio 2016 Olympics, she relived a similar glory at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, setting a new Olympic record in the women’s 100m in 10.61s and breaking her personal best in 21.53s over the 200m.

In closing out the games in style, her second leg run gave Jamaica their fourth and Thompson Herah’s third gold medal of the games. The quartet of Brianna Williams, Elaine Thompson-Herah, Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce and Shericka Jackson ran 41.02 to break the national record and third fastest in history.

Following the Olympic Games, Thompson Herah had firm sights on breaking Florence Joyner’s long-standing record of 10.49s. However, she ran 10.54s, 10.64s and 10.65s, respectively, to win the Diamond League title. Additionally, she became the first female athlete in the game’s history to run 10.70s on four different occasions in the same season.

Even though Elaine Thompson Herah has achieved many amazing feats, the nine other nominees, too, had an extraordinary season.

Notably, the other nominees from the track are Olympic 400m hurdles champion Femke Bol of Netherlands, Olympic 100m hurdles champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn from Puerto Rico, Olympic 5,000m and 10,000m champion Sifan Hassan from Netherlands, Olympic 1500m champion Faith Kipyegon from Kenya, World and Olympic 400m hurdles champion Sydney McLaughlin of USA, Olympic 400m champion Shaunae Miller-Uibo from The Bahamas, and Olympic 800m and 4x400m champion Athing Mu from USA.

Also nominated from the field are Olympic discus champion Valarie Allman from USA, Olympic high jump champion Mariya Lasitskene from Russia (ANA) and triple jump Olympic champion Yulimar Rojas from Venezuela.

 

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