100m champion Julien Alfred wanted to become like Usain Bolt, now she is as famous as St Lucia’s Nobel prize winners | Sport-others News

Saint Lucians flaunt their Nobel prize dinction. The country has the highest number of Nobel laureates per capita, the writer Derek Walcott and econom Sir Arthur Lewis. What it did not possess was an Olympic medall — one among the 70 countries that had never medalled in the Games. That was until Saturday night though, before Julien Alfred ripped past the finish line in 10.72 seconds, like a straight-lined blur, an apparition dressed in sky blue jersey to claim gold.The sprinter she bolted ahead to win the gold was none other than World Champion Sha’Carri Richardson of the United States.
The sprinter from Cicero, five kilometres from the business town of Castries, the capital of the country likened to Helen of Troy for the numerous wars the British and French waged to conquer it, began her day watching Usain Bolt’s London run, a routine since she began to run. When she was young, she would scribble in her diary: “I want to be like Bolt.”
On Saturday, she would then note in her diary: “Julien Alfred, Olympic champion”.
After the race — a near perfect exhibition of controlled acceleration and impossible composure from the moment the pol fired — she attempted a Bolt-like slingshot act and flunked it, perhaps realising that she was too emotional to pull off a rehearsed piece of celebration, when her tears of joy and torrent of sweat blended with Parisian showers on the purple tracks of the Stade de France in Saint Denise.
She ran to a corner, took the bib off and pointed to her name to the audience of the packed arena. She soon wrapped herself in her country’s flag and drowned in the pounding rain.
Gasping for breath, not out of exhaustion but out of disbelief, she groped for words to capture the moment. Memories rolled back to her childhood: “Growing up I used to be on the field struggling with no shoes, running barefoot, running in my school uniform, running all over the place.”
All she knew when she was a child was to run. Her mother, Joanna, would narrate her journey to MBC Television: “My late husband and I used to leave her and the other kids at home, and the neighbours used to tell us that they would see Julien running really fast past their houses. But there was nothing like an academy or something like that in the neighbourhood. Moreover, we didn’t have the money either. We wanted her to study so that she can live a dignified life.”
Paris 2024 Olympics – Athletics – Women’s 200m Round 1 – Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France – August 04, 2024. Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia crosses the line to win heat 1 with Gemima Joseph of France and Julia Henriksson of Sweden behind her. (REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch)
But the physical education teacher, Simeon Stephen, at the Leon Hess Comprehensive Secondary School — her senior was the West Indies swashbuckler Johnson Charles, who has a stand named after him in the Darren Sammy Stadium — saw a burning spark in her. “He saw the potential in me and made me run with the boys. He would teach me the technique and the importance of mental strength, to keep fighting and never give up,” she would say of Stephen, who died two years ago.
Running barefoot
The family couldn’t afford high-quality running shoes. But she was made to do with those from her seniors, or when there was none, she would run barefoot. But Stephen would give her the first pair of proper shoes, before she joined an athletics club run a former athlete Cuthbert Modeste.“Aunt Karen too was another big influence. She always encouraged me and used to tell my parents to support me,” Alfred would tell St Lucia Times.
Her aunt too didn’t live to see her niece’s moment of glory, but the most shocking death of her life was her father’s, when she was only 12. “I decided to quit running, because I felt it was not viable. I had to help my mother out, besides we didn’t have much infrastructure here,” she would tell the world athletics website.
But Stephen insed on her applying for a scholarship at the St Catherine High School in Kingston, Jamaica, where former athlete Marlon Jones coached. She did and flew to the island of her idol Bolt in 2015. (File)
The Island country of only 180,000 people, starved of sportsmen and sporting glory but for cricketer Darren Sammy, who has an entire stadium and an avenue beside it named after him
The other main sports venue it possessed was the skeleton of a stadium. With Chinese investment, construction had begun to repurpose the George Odlum National Stadium, a football arena into a multipurpose facility, but the work has been stalled for nearly decades. But under Saudi Arabia’s initiative work has resumed.
“We barely have the facilities. The stadium is not fixed. I hope this gold medal will help St Lucia build a new stadium, to help the sport grow,” Alfred would say.
Setting NCAA circuit on fire
But Stephen insed on her applying for a scholarship at the St Catherine High School in Kingston, Jamaica, where former athlete Marlon Jones coached. She did and flew to the island of her idol Bolt in 2015. Two years later, she would make another big leap and joined the Leon Hess Comprehensive Secondary School in Texas to train under the legendary Edrick Floréal. He not only polished her technique, especially her head position at the starting position, but also worked on her fitness.
A piece of advice became her guiding light too: “Being the fastest woman doesn’t play as much of a role as being the strongest woman.” He made her work so hard at the gym that she could run three rounds of the 60m race a day with the same energy. I got better because I dedicated myself to running more with longer workouts, which I hated before.” Soon, she would set the NCAA circuit on fire, setting the 60m indoor world record, besides a clutch of marks at the collegiate level in the USA.

The World Championship in Budapest was a disappointment — she finished fifth in the 100m and fourth in the 200m. “Iron sharpens iron,” she would say. A year later, the irony lady from Castries wore her country its first Olympic medal, of golden hue no less. The girl who wanted to be Bolt has transformed into a Bolt-like figure of inspiration in her island too. And would occupy a space as hallowed in their hory as the two Nobel Laureates.