Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce not competing in the 200m at the World Championships
As she looks ahead to the 2023 World Championships and Paris 2024, the Jamaican sprint queen is focussing on the 100m.
The reigning world 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will not race the 200m at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest.
The three-time Olympic champion, who will be aiming for her sixth 100m world title, had been listed by for a sprint double by Jamaican Athletics after qualifying second fastest in the 200m via her national championships.
But Fraser-Pryce only intends to race the women's 100m and the 4x100m relay. Earlier in the year she confirmed her plans to focus on the 100m in the future. "Last year I said that was it,” she said. “And it may possibly be it for me for real and I’ll just focus on the 100m. The double is very hard. It is strenuous. The workload that you need to do it is definitely hard.”
Fraser-Pryce clinched a record fifth 100m world title in 2022, becoming the first athlete to win five world titles in a single individual running event - an accomplishment that may be influencing her decision to focus on her strongest race.
This leaves the defending champion Shericka Jackson who has a wild card, plus Natalliah Whyte, and Kevona Davis.
The women’s 100m promises to be a great race with the two Jamaican stars tipped to make the final alongside American Sha’Carri Richardson and Ivorian Marie-Jose Ta Lou.
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce can look back at a stellar 200m career so far.
The 36-year-old secured a 200m silver medal at the 2012 London Olympics and became world champion in the distance a year later. After finishing fourth at Tokyo 2020 held in 2021, she bagged another 200m silver at last year's world championships.
It won’t be the first time that Fraser-Pryce is ruling out the 200m.
She had dropped the longer sprint at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, where she won the 100m and the 4x100m relay.