Thompson-Herah smokes field at Prefontaine Classic, Richardson fails to deliver

By Sports Desk August 21, 2021

Jamaica double Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah put away a top-quality field to massively improve an already impressive personal best, at the Prefontaine Classic, Wanda Diamond League meet in Eugene, Oregon on Saturday.

Fresh off an impressive triumph at the Tokyo Games, Thompson-Herah was in no mood to slow down, and in fact, went considerably faster.  The Jamaican pulled away from compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in the final metres of the race to stop the clock at 10.54, just .05 second outside of the world record set by the United States' Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988.

In almost identical fashion to Tokyo, Fraser-Pryce was second in 10.73, with Shericka Jackson third in 10.76.

Prior to the race, a lot of the attention was focussed on the return of flamboyant United States sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson who missed out on a match-up with the Jamaica trio at the Olympics, after serving a brief suspension for testing positive for marijuana. 

Expectations had been heightened for the sprinter’s return after emphatically winning the US trials before the Games.  In Eugene, however, she was nowhere to be found.  Richardson got away slowly and never got into the race, ending at the back of the field in a pedestrian 11.14.  Thompson-Herah now has the two fastest times outside of the longstanding world record set by Griffith-Joyner.

 

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