Jamaican sprint legend Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce will be among the athletes who have made the most appearances at the Olympics after sealing her ticket to the Paris Games.
Jamaican sprint legend Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce has joined the list of athletes who will make five appearances at the Olympics after sealing her ticket on Friday.
Fraser-Pryce finished third in a time of 10.94 seconds at the Jamaican Olympics trials to qualify for the Paris Games in the 100m with Shericka Jackson (10.84) and Tia Clayton (10.90) claiming first and second positions respectively.
It means Fraser-Pryce has a crack at a fifth medal in 100m at the Olympics, having won gold in Beijing 2008 and London 2012, bronze in Rio 2016 and silver in Tokyo 2020.
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Shericka Jackson overcame her semifinal disappointment, clocking a stunning 10.84 to claim the Jamaican title ahead of Tia Clayton and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.
Most importantly, she is among a few runners who will make a fifth appearance at the Olympics, joining Kenyan legend Eliud Kipchoge, who is also eyeing history in Paris.
She also has silver in 200m (London 2012), one gold in 4x100m relay and two silver medals over the distance.
The 37-year-old is heading to her final Olympics and is looking to sign off in style even though the emergence of young sprinters such as world champion Sha’Carri Richardson posses a major challenge.
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Meanwhile, Kipchoge won bronze at his first Olympics, the 2004 Athens edition, when he was running in the 5,000m, before improving it to silver four years later in Beijing over the same distance.
The 2016 Rio Olympics happened when he had already made a great transition to the marathon where he won gold before defending his title in Tokyo. Kipchoge is now looking to become the first man to win marathon gold at three straight Olympics in what is his fifth appearance.
However, the two veterans’ appearance record will be beaten by Mongolian marathoner Ser-Od Bat-Ochir, who will be making a sixth straight Olympics appearance.
Other track and field stars with six Olympics appearances are Melina Robert-Michon of France, Fragutin Topic (Serbia), Romanian duo Lia Manoliu Nicoleta and Gradinaru-Grasu (Romania), Joao N'Tyamba (Angola), Tessa Sanderson (Great Britain) and Mozambique legend Maria Mutola