Jamaican sprinter Fraser-Pryce to make Paris Games her fifth and final Olympics

Jamaican great Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce said the Paris Games will be her fifth and final Olympics.

The 37-year-old sprinter, who won two gold medals at 100 meters and another in the 4×100 relay, told Essence.com she still loves the sport but will retire after Paris so she can spend more time with her husband and her 6-year-old son, Zyon.

“My son needs me,” she said. “My husband and I have been together since before I won in 2008. He has sacrificed for me. 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. And I think I now owe it to them to do something else.”

Fraser-Pryce surprised everyone with a second-place finish at Jamaica’s Olympic trials in 2008, then went on to lead a Jamaican sweep in the 100 meters at the Beijing Games. It was the first of her eight Olympic medals. She also won four silvers — including one in Tokyo in 2021 — and one bronze.

She also has won 10 gold medals at world championships, including six individual championships — five in the 100 and one in the 200. In 2019, she returned after the birth of her son and became the oldest woman to win the world title. She won it again in 2022 at age 35.

She finished third at the worlds last year and is considered a contender in Paris, along with defending world champion Sha’Carri Richardson and two-time defending Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah.

“There’s not a day I’m getting up to go practice and I’m like, ‘I’m over this,’” Fraser-Pryce said.