Julien Alfred reveals success strategy and outlines future goals - less is more
The Olympic women's 100m champion explains how her training camp and sole focus on Paris 2024 helped her win the first two Olympic medals for Saint Lucia.
Athletics
How has life changed for Julien Alfred, Saint Lucia’s first Olympic medallist and champion?
“It’s been good; I’ve really been enjoying the process and just really taking in what happened in Paris, but just not getting ahead of myself, I’m just trying to take it one step at a time,” Alfred recently said in a press conference (as per the St. Lucia Times).
The Saint Lucian government have declared a national holiday, ‘Julien Alfred Day’, to honour the island’s gold and silver medallist from Paris 2024. She is looking forward to returning home after a long summer away, where she put the Caribbean island on the map with its first Olympic medals of any kind.
She explained, “I’m going to go back home. I haven’t got a chance to celebrate with my country as yet, to see the youth of my country. I really just want to go back to Saint Lucia, celebrate with them and maybe go for a vacation after that. I’m still deciding on where I want to go.”
Before her return, Alfred will compete in the women’s 100m at the Wanda Diamond League final in Brussels on Friday, 13 September.
Julien Alfred on her ‘competitive’ training camp
The Saint Lucian sprinter stunned the world by taking gold in the women’s 100m at Paris 2024, going on to win a silver medal in the women’s 200m three days later.
An important part of Alfred’s success at Paris was a sound training environment alongside some of the finest sprinters in the world.
Among her training partners are two-time Olympic bronze medallist Dina Asher-Smith, as well as rising track stars Rhasidat Adeleke of Ireland and Jamaica’s Kevona Davis.
Alfred won two medals at her debut Olympic Games at Paris 2024.
“Each training session is like really high quality, it’s very competitive,” Alfred said of her strategy to being the best version of herself. “Just having a group with such high-quality world-class athletes, it really helps me to train at my best, and compete at my best.”
Furthering her preparations was a reduced workload as the professional athlete was able to put all her efforts into her preparations for the Games and did not have to worry about the grind of running almost very week.
Having “less races" was key, she said. "Last year I had the NCAA [National Collegiate Athletics Association] season, I don’t have any trials. So I really just prepared for the Olympics. I think that has been the biggest difference compared to like other athletes, and last year.”
Alfred has already earned her plaudits for Olympic gold. Now she wants to end her sason in style.