Breaking News: A celebrity opens out about her performance in the 2024 US Olympic trials.
Olympic 4x100m relay champion Sha’Carri Richardson has said she was confident of winning the US Track and Field trials for the Paris Olympics and her world-leading time of 10.71 seconds didn’t come as a surprise.
After missing a sport in the US team to the Tokyo Olympic Games, Richardson faced a battle to earn a slot for the Paris edition considering the cut-throat competitive nature of the sprints-rich US.
However, the Texas-born 24-year-old said her main aim was to deliver on track in order to debut in the Olympics. “All I needed to do was execute. I knew I could do it, and I did it,” she told Sportskeeda.
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At the 2024 USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Eugene, Oregon, Richardson defended her title in the women’s 100-meter sprint event, winning the final in 10.71 seconds in June, and qualifying for the Olympics in Paris.
She did not qualify for the 200m, however, finishing fourth in the final of the qualifier. At the Olympics 100m, Richardson finished second behind Saint Lucia’s Julien Alfred, who had a faster start out of the blocks and never relinquished her lead.
With athletics currently at the break, Richardson has been hard at work fine-tuning preparations ahead of the 2025 season that is expected to kick off early next year.
Recently, she was spotted doing gym sessions alongside Christian Coleman and Bayern Munich dazzling winger Kingsley Coleman.
World marathon record holder Ruth Chepng’etich is targeting another record as she ties the line on New Year’s Eve for the Nationale-Nederlanden San Silvestre Vallecana in Madrid.
This will present an opportunity for the Kenyan ace to make history once again, as she looks to attack Brigid Kosgei’s course record in the 10km.
Brigid Kosgei became the first woman in history, back in 2018, running under 30 seconds over the distance and with times changing and technology evolving, that time has yet to be lowered and the course record remains intact.
Ruth Chepng’etich will be out to finish her year with another record, and leave a mark on the streets of Madrid. The former world marathon champion will forever be remembered for her love for the Chicago Marathon where she broke the world record.
In Chicago, Chepng’etich clocked 2:09:56 to leave the athletics world in awe and her record was just ratified recently. She will arrive in Madrid as one of the greatest.
She was in action in 2020 where she failed to secure a win and with her recent form, Chepng’etich is going for nothing short of a victory. In 2020, she was beaten by Ethiopia’s ace Yalemzerf Yehualaw.
She will be challenged by Ethiopian Adawork Aberta who will be looking to follow in the footsteps of the likes of Eliud Kipchoge and Yalemzerf Yehualaw of the NN Running team.
Kenyan-born Mexican Risper Besabwa will also be in the mix looking to impress with her best result this season being the sixth-place finish at the 2023 Pan American Games in the marathon. Others include Turks Emine Hartun Mechaal and Tugva GuvençYenigum.
Another one in the mix is Laura Priego who has already made a name for herself and will be out to improve her fifth-place finish from last season. The event will prove to be one of the most thrilling to usher in the new year with the Kenyan ace leading the charge.
Paris Olympic 100m champion Julien Alfred upset a quality field in the French capital to win one of the most memorable titles ever seen by St.Lucians.
While she delivered a fatal blow to favorite Sha’Carri Richardson at the Stade de France, part of her inspiration came from the demanding St. Lucians who felt that their star athlete must deliver every time she appeared at a global championship.
Alfred carried the hope of the Caribbean nation single handedly in Paris but she delivered when it mattered most according to the 23-year-old.
Racing in the pouring rain, Alfred stormed to the 100m title to create history for Saint Lucia at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Alfred won her nation’s first ever senior global medal in athletics when she gained world indoor 60m gold in Glasgow in March but became her nation’s first Olympic medalist in any sport.
She made sure that maiden medal was a gold one, clinching a clear victory in a national record of 10.72 to beat world champion Sha’Carri Richardson and her US compatriot and training partner Melissa Jefferson.
Alfred – lined up in lane six, with Richardson to her right and Jefferson to her left – got off to a great start. Although Richardson powered through in trademark style, 23-year-old Alfred couldn’t be caught and Richardson settled for silver in 10.87, as Jefferson got bronze in 10.92.
The Olympic 200m silver medalist finished fourth over 200m and fifth over 100m at the 2023 World Championships.
Triple Olympic champion Gabby Thomas has opened up about one of the things she has totally failed to get over despite several warnings from her coach Tonja Buford-Bailey.
Gabby Thomas is a perfectionist and would always be looking to analyse all of her races, bothering her coach with questions after every race.
However, her coach is not a fan of those questions as she insists they might affect how she executes her next races as she will be focusing on making everything better, something that is close to impossible as it is always said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
Paris Olympic marathon champion Sifan Hassan has revealed his excitement to fully major in marathons next year.
While she confirmed that she will combine both track and road races in 2025, She maintained that the marathon will be a priority for her.
Marathon Olympic champion Sifan Hassan will concentrate in marathon in 2025 after a breakout year.
Paris Olympic marathon champion Sifan Hassan has revealed his excitement to fully major in marathons next year.
While she confirmed that she will combine both track and road races in 2025, She maintained that the marathon will be a priority for her.
The double Paris bronze medalist in 5000m and 10000m told World Athletics: “I think I’m going to do the track and road again, because I just want to do those things, a combination of track and road close to each other. Because I am very curious. I really like it because I don’t know for sure if it is going to happen. I like the excitement.”
Hassan, who grabbed the 5000m gold in the Tokyo version of the Games, said she faced a mental battle regarding her chances in the marathon until at some point during the race she contemplated quitting. The three-time Diamond League champion pursued a marathon in 2023 and won both the London and Chicago marathons the same year.
This year, she took the Tokyo marathon course as well as the gruesome Paris course. “My first three marathons were all different and for the Olympic marathon, I was really fighting myself. One side of me said: ‘concentrate on the marathon’, the other side said: ‘better that you do the track’. I was really struggling with myself. I didn’t have confidence I was going to win after the track,” she said.
A bold Hassan said she will take an unpopular decision of doing four marathons in the near future even though that has never happened to any athlete. “One time, I want to do four marathons in a year – from February to February. I want to see if it is possible.”
Noah Lyles believes he still has more time to break Usain Bolt’s world records as he referenced Jamaican sprint queen Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.
Both the 100m (9.58 seconds) and 200m (19.19 seconds) world records were set by the Jamaican legend Usain Bolt at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, Germany.
Lyles has been vocal about attacking the 200m world specifically but owing to the mixed season he had in 2024, he was forced to postpone his ambitions. The triple world champion remains confident that the right time will come as he revealed that his peak has just started.
The reigning Olympic 100m champion added that he is likely to compete for many years, drawing inspiration from tack queen Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce who is 38 and still going strong.
However, Shelly-Ann might be enjoying the final days of her career as she also revealed that the Paris Olympics were her final Games. He believes that with technology, he will continue making waves in the world of track and field.
“They used to say it was around 30 when a sprinter reaches their peak but with technology now, it’s more like 35,” Noah Lyles said on his Beyond the Records podcast.
“And then you’ve got people like Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. I’ve just reached what they consider peak fitness for my age. So 26 through 31/32 is what they consider to be peak.”
The American sprint king has had a slow 2024 season, especially at the Paris Olympic Games where he tested positive for COVID-19 and could not realise his dreams.
Noah Lyles started his Olympic campaign on a high, winning the men’s 100m Olympic title but went ahead and settled for bronze in the 200m. Letsile Tebogo won the race as Kenny Bednarek finished second.
The reason I brought that up was to show that the NBA does a good job with its marketing strategy. They’re not actual world champions, but they’ve ingrained the idea so deeply that you can’t tell anybody anything else.”
Lyles holds focus as sprint’s main character, creating spectacle with his bold fashions and brash talk. The spotlight has made him sought after and he enjoys it even more now that he’s both the Olympic and world champion.
Off the track, Lyles played a starring role in the second season of Netflix documentary Sprint and he is as outspoken as eve
