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Last Saturday in Paris, Julien Alfred woke up early to jot her thoughts down in her journal. It’s a routine she usually follows on race days to help clear her mind and sharpen her focus. 

But this was like no other race day the 23-year-old sprinter from St. Lucia had experienced until then. She kept it simple. “I wrote down, ‘Julien Alfred: Olympic champion,’” she said.

That done, Alfred spent the rest of her morning watching footage of retired Jamaican great Usain Bolt, the fastest sprinter of all time. “I just watched how he just executed,” she said.

Etched into history

By the evening, Alfred had catapulted herself into her country’s own pantheon of greats. She stunned US favourite Sha’Carri Richardson to win the women’s 100m gold, etching her name into history by claiming the Caribbean island nation’s first ever medal at the Olympics.

Island icon: Having put St. Lucia on the world athletics map, Alfred says she is ‘honoured just to be an ambassador for my country’. | Photo credit: Getty Images

Alfred — who had never finished on the podium at a major outdoor championships prior to last weekend’s final — conjured up a superb race to win in 10.72s, as Richardson took silver in 10.87s and Melissa Jefferson clinched bronze in 10.92s.

The powerfully built Alfred led from start to finish, exploding out of the blocks and romping through the puddles at a rainswept Stade de France. Her margin of victory — 0.15 seconds — was the biggest in the Olympic 100m since 2008. None of the other finalists matched Alfred’s top speed of 41.04 kmph, with the fancied Richardson coming the closest (40.52kmph).

Alfred recovered sufficiently to win the 200m silver three days after her history-making run, doubling her Olympic medal collection and proving again that she is among the world’s best.

Getting to the top of the podium has not been a smooth passage for Alfred, whose 100m victory came in front of 69,000 spectators, just 110,000 less than the population of St. Lucia. She grew up too poor to buy shoes and had to run barefoot, in her school uniform, in poor facilities. Spotted by the school librarian, young Julien was fast and full of promise, but her world was rocked by the death of her father Julian Hamilton when she was just 12.

She briefly stepped back from athletics altogether. Fortunately for her, St. Lucia and the world of athletics, her first coach Cuthbert Modeste, who had trained Alfred since she was nine, convinced her to return to the sport. At 14, she decided to go to school in Jamaica, the home of her idol Bolt, leaving behind her family for a shot at developing into a top sprinter.

“I did have tough times when I was 14,” she said. “I think getting the opportunity to go to a place where Usain Bolt is was ideal and I decided I wanted to be there and my mum gave me the opportunity to go. She didn’t say no. She just said to me, ‘If you want to go then, okay.’”

Growing up without family and friends, while training and competing against Jamaica’s best,  certainly toughened up the young athlete. Alfred, known as ‘Juju’, dreamt of sprinting on the Olympic stage where Bolt shone so bright, but it wasn’t until she attended the University of Texas, where she became a multiple-time NCAA champion, that she began to realise she had what was needed to become a truly elite athlete.

Turning point

Winning the Youth Olympic Games 100m silver in Buenos Aires in 2018 was a turning point for her career — “the beginning of something great”, as she said later.

Taken in hand by Edrick Floreal at the University of Texas — he also coaches reigning European 100m champion Dina Asher-Smith — she began to blossom. A shy individual, Alfred found the perfect mentor in Floreal, someone who could read her and extract the best from her.

“He’s been like a dad, a mentor and a coach,” Alfred told Olympics.com. “There can be so much pressure and I really appreciate all that he has done, not just from a coaching standpoint, but also just being a human like I am. He’s seen me as a human and not just an athlete.”

Floreal, for his part, has been wowed by how Alfred has adjusted from the junior to the senior ranks. “She’s fantastic,” he said. “It’s a difficult adjustment that a lot of kids are not able to do; there’s a lot of people pulling at you.”

The memories of her incredible journey flooded back as Alfred rang the victory bell at the end of the track to signify that she was indeed an Olympic 100m champion. A sound that made everything really feel real. The most poignant memory, the one that made her burst into tears, involved her late father, who believed this sort of moment was possible.

Blossoming in college: Alfred attended the University of Texas, where she became a multiple-time NCAA champion and realised she had what it took to be a top sprinter. | Photo credit: Getty Images

“He believed I could be an Olympian. That I can be here,” Alfred said. “I want to attribute the win to [my father] … he’d be so boastful of his daughter being an Olympian.”

Alfred’s 100m win — admittedly in a depleted field, with two-time Olympic 100m champions Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce injured — exemplified the 23-year-old’s strengths. At her best, her focus is unshakeable, she barely notices what’s happening in the lanes next to her, and in the final, Richardson’s starry presence didn’t register.

“Sometimes when I do [look at the adjoining lanes], I tend to panic,” Alfred said. “So far this year [not paying attention] has been such a good strategy. As long as you just run your race and try to execute what you have to do, then you’re fine.”

Where it was won

Alfred’s opening burst had played a big role when she won the world indoor title earlier this year at 60 metres, and she started strong in this one, with two steps on the entire field at the 40-metre mark. Richardson, as has happened before this summer, laboured to get to full speed. Her reaction time off the blocks of 0.221 seconds compared unfavourably to Alfred’s 0.144

Given Alfred’s powerful finishing ability, the American stood no chance of turning things around, and St. Lucia had opened its Olympic account.

“I feel honoured just to be an ambassador for my country,” Alfred said. “Not many people know about St. Lucia. Sometimes I can be in an Uber and they ask me where I’m from… and they’ll be like ‘Where’s St. Lucia?’ It means a lot to me. It means a lot to my coach. It means a lot to my country. I’m just really happy, it happened on the biggest stage of my career.”

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