Elaine Thompson, 24, edged US sprinter Tori Bowie and fellow Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce to claim the Olympic 100m gold medal.
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Thompson’s victory will extend Jamaica’s dominance of the event to 12 years by the time of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, while Gail Devers was the last American champion in 1996 – Marion Jones won in 2000 but was stripped.
Thompson clocked 10.71 seconds – the second-fastest time in Olympic women’s 100m final in history – to get the better of American Tori Bowie (10.83) and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (10.87).
Fraser-Pryce said she will be bringing her season to a close after the Olympics and will be consulting with several medical professionals, noting that a surgical procedure to correct her toe injury is “very possible”. Until she finished second in the 200m at last year’s world championships, she barely made a splash on the worldwide scene, tucked behind Fraser-Pryce and the country’s seven-time Olympic medalist, Veronica Campbell-Brown, among others.
Thompson said: “When I crossed the line and glanced across to see I was clear, I didn’t know how to celebrate”.
Jamaica won the women’s 4x100m relay once, back in 2004 at the Athen Olympic Games.
The win ended 29-year-old Fraser-Pryce’s hopes of a hat-trick of 100m titles after her gold medals in the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games.
“Oh yeah, she’s watching – and she’s probably crying right now”, Bowie said with a smile.
“Just made me a little bit more motivated”, Bowie said of the silver. “I’m proud of Jamaica – just look at my hair”. “When I place that medal in her hands, I’ll be crying”, Henderson, 27, said.
If not for the painful left toe injury that hampered Fraser-Pryce all year, she nearly certainly would’ve given Thompson an even sterner test in the final.
She was clearly healed once she got to Brazil.
“If somebody was telling me this back then, I wouldn’t believe”.
“She’s also my training partner and a motivation to me … and for us to come out here tonight and dominate is fantastic”.
Another former Golden Eagle, Mariam Kromah, competed in the Women’s 400 meters earlier in the day and she finished fifth in her heat; just short of qualifying for the semifinals.
She won the silver medal in the 200 and a gold medal in the 4×100 relay at the world championships a year ago.
“When I fell down I thought, ‘Well, my dream is over, ‘ but I chose to dig deep because I promised my daughter I’d get her a medal”, Farah said of stepdaughter Rihanna.
In a thrilling finish, long-shot Nafissatou Thiam of Belgium upset defending gold medalist Jessica Ennis-Hill to win the heptathlon.
In between, US long jumper Jeff Henderson leapt 8.38 meters to overtake Luvo Manyonga of South Africa to claim gold on his last jump.
The Belgian did just that, finishing at 7.47sec to amass a total of 6,810 points, with Canada’s Brianne Thiesen-Eaton claiming bronze (6,653).
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Germany’s Christoph Harding won gold in the men’s discus with a throw of 68.37 meters.
