Shelley-Ann Fraser-Pryce celebrates with her son Zyon after winning the 100m gold at IAAF World Athletics Championships in Doha.

NAIROBI, June 2, 2020 - Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, currently the world’s fastest woman, hasn’t dismissed the idea of possibly taking part in the deferred 2022 World Championships in Oregon, USA despite the fact that she will be 35 years old by then.

“It would be nice to finish (my career) so close to home where my friends who’ve always found it difficult to travel far can visit…no one thought it would be possible for me to come back from a C-section and win a championship at 32 years old but I did, so you never know,” the 9 time world champion revealed in an exclusive interview with NTV Sport in Kenya.
 

The World Athletics Championships – initially slated for the summer of 2021 – were pushed forward due to the rescheduling of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I was very disappointed by the Olympics postponement, it’s like a timeline for me to achieve these things…I have a family now that needs me to take precautions so it was a bummer but there are lives at stake and that’s most important,” Fraser-Pryce added.

The 2020 Olympics would have possibly capped off a remarkable ten months for the “pocket rocket”, who stormed the history books at Doha 2019 when she won the 100m final in a season best time of 10.71 seconds, to become the only athlete to scoop four 100m world championship gold medals.

Despite the magnitude of the achievement, it was overshadowed by the fact that Fraser-Pryce did it as as a new mother. “I didn’t sleep at all the night before my final in Doha,” she confesses, “I was so anxious because my last championship had been 3 years before that.” She skipped the London 2017 championships to have a baby.
 

Fraser-Pryce counts the 2019 win and her maiden 100m gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics as her most memorable victories. Her latest win in Qatar saw the introduction of her son Zyon to the world, as the Jamaican proudly ran her victory lap with the two-year-old in her arms. “When I first found out I was pregnant I was so skeptical, but I want to show women that having a baby doesn’t have to end your career,” the sprinter says with conviction. She also congratulates friend and countryman Usain Bolt on the birth of his child.

The world might have come to a temporary standstill due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but luckily, the double Olympic gold medalist’s dreams haven’t suffered the same limitations. Fraser-Pryce religiously wakes up at 5:30am to beat the scorching sun for her work-out routine. It’s a word she admittedly likes, “I’m a routine sort of person.”

However, life in 2020 has been anything but a regular pattern for the star, who is speculated to have switched coaches in preparation for her final Summer Games. “I train at the national stadium and we have to stay 6 feet apart while being in groups of no more than ten,” Fraser-Pryce explains, “then I have an afternoon session where I do gym or plyometrics.”
 

The Olympian mulls over having to run in an empty stadium if the pandemic isn’t controlled by the time of the Tokyo Games, “I love the energy from the crowd…we’re used to having stadiums full of people in Jamaica, so it will be weird but we’ll handle it if it gets there.”

Kenya and Jamaica share a common love for athletics. The African country is famous for its mid & long distance domination, while the Caribbean nation commands the shorter distances. “My favorite Kenyan athlete is Ezekiel Kemboi,” Fraser-Pryce says animatedly, “he’s my friend and I would always want to see him win so that he could dance…I also love Vivian (Cheruiyot).”  

Fraser-Pryce, who wears many hats, looked ahead to life beyond the track. “I’ll want to get my Masters and get into child or athletes counseling when athletics is done one day,” says the woman who is arguably the greatest female sprinter of all time.