Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will run in her final Olympics, telling Essence that she plans to retire after the Paris Games this summer.
The three-time Olympic champion sprinter said that she owes it to her family to “do something else.”
“My son needs me. My husband and I have been together since before I won in 2008. He has sacrificed for me,” the 37-year-old Fraser-Pryce told Essence.com. “We’re a partnership, a team, and it’s because of that support that I’m able to do the things that I have been doing for all these years. I think I now owe it to them to do something else.”
Fraser-Pryce won her first gold medal in Beijing 2008, becoming the first Caribbean woman to win gold in the women’s 100 meters.
She then retained her title at the London 2012 Olympics, and won bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics. She won another Olympic silver and relay gold at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021.
In 2019, she became the oldest woman to claim a world championship in the 100 meters in Doha. She then won again in 2022 in Eugene, Oregon. In total, she’s won 10 world championships gold medals, including six individual championships.
After finishing third at worlds last year, the Jamaican sprinter is focused on preparing for Paris, where she says she wants to “finish on my own terms.”
“It’s not enough that we step on a track and we win medals,” Fraser-Pryce said. “You have to think about the next generation that’s coming after you and give them the opportunity to also dream — and dream big.”