Jamaican sprinter Shericka Jackson has been on everyone’s radar as an Olympic gold medal contender this year. Going into the Paris Games, Jackson was slated to line up in two hotly contested and much anticipated Athletics events: the 100- and 200-meter races.
Jackson first shocked fans last week when she announced she was pulling out of the 100-meter race, citing health reasons. “Sometimes you have to prepare mentally, especially if you have a mess up where you get a little bit hurt,” Jackson told FloTrack in an interview on July 31. All signs suggested that Jackson had dropped the shorter sprint to focus fully on the 200. When asked about her confidence going into the 200, she said simply, “I’m always confident.”
And for good reason: Jackson’s personal record of 21.41 seconds is the second-fastest time ever run by a woman in the 200-meter, just 0.07 seconds behind the 1988 world record set by Florence Griffith Joyner (a.k.a “Flo-Jo”). If Jackson were to save her speed for a single event on the Stade de France track, her chances of clinching the gold looked better in the 200 than the 100 (though she still holds the 5th-fastest 100-meter time in the world, 10.65 seconds). In a press conference after winning the 200-meter at last year’s World Athletic Championships, Jackson fondly referred to the 200 as “her baby.”
So when she made a second shocking announcement on August 4, that she’d also be sitting out of the 200-meter race at the Paris Olympics, a lot of people started asking questions.
Jackson and her team have yet to explain exactly why she decided not to compete in an individual event at the Games this year—all we have thus far from Jackson is an Instagram post from August 3, saying, “Sometimes the process is painful and hard. But don’t forget that when God is silent, he is doing something good for you.” What’s more, “There have been injury concerns coming into the Olympic Games,” Team Jamaica. At the Hungarian Grand Prix less than a month ago on July 9, Jackson pulled back on her speed before the finish line of the 200-meter, despite leading the race, and appeared to be in pain leaving the track. ESPN reported that Jackson had a minor Achilles tendon tear. If that’s the case, it would explain why she wouldn’t want to risk a more serious injury in an all-out sprint for gold.
And yet, we may still get to watch Jackson in all her Olympic glory before the closing ceremony. She’s eligible to represent Jamacia in the women’s 4×100-meter race on Thursday, August 8, where her team would likely face Team USA’s sprinting powerhouses Sha’Carri Richardson and Gabby Thomas.
