Julien ALFRED

Julien Alfred: Collegiate accolades and first international successes

In 2018, Alfred once again upped sticks, taking a place at the University of Texas where she represented the Texas Longhorns track team.

During her last two years of college, she won the outdoor 100m title as well as the indoor 60m and 200m titles and was honoured with the Bowerman Award (the highest accolade for a college athlete) in her final year at University in 2023.

Having won silver in the 100m at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and gold over the same distance at the 2023 Central American and Caribbean Games, Alfred competed in the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest where she finished fifth in 100m and fourth in 200m.

Julien Alfred: World indoor title precedes Olympic history

Alfred made history at the beginning of 2024, triumphing in the 100m at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships. Her victory was the first by a Saint Lucian athlete at a global senior championships.

However, the best was yet to come. At Paris 2024, she stormed to victory in the women’s 100m final, setting a new national record of 10.72 seconds and claiming the first-ever Olympic medal - of any colour - for her country.

“I have worked so hard to get to this point,” she told Olympics.com after her victory. “I had so many challenges in my life and just to finally cross the line first at the Olympic Games has been a dream of mine. Just seeing the crowd celebrate, realising what just happened, it was just unbelievable at the time.”