Shericka Jackson to skip women’s 100m race at Paris Olympics

Shericka Jackson of Jamaica will not run in the 100 metres when Olympic track events start, saying that the injury she suffered at a tune-up race earlier this month played a part in the decision.

Jackson said on Wednesday she will still run in her better race, the 200 metres, where she is the only woman other than the world-record holder, the late Florence Griffith Joyner, to finish in under 21.5 seconds.

The Olympic track meet starts on Friday, highlighted by the opening round for the women’s 100, where Jackson had been listed as the second favourite behind world champion Sha’Carri Richardson.

Jackson’s announcement does come in the wake of her pulling up with an apparent injury late in a race in Hungary three weeks ago.

The Jamaican was leading the race entering the home straight before abruptly slowing down, grimacing and putting her head in her hands as she eventually walked across the finish line.

“It was a combination of things,” Jackson said. “I got hurt, and me and my coach felt like it was a good decision to only run one event.”

Jackson won national titles at both distances earlier this year and was expected to be part of a typically strong pool of Jamaican sprinters.

Now, she joins another Jamaican, two-time defending champion Elaine Thompson-Herah, on the sidelines. Another Jamaican, 37-year-old Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, is in the mix in her fifth and final Olympics; Fraser-Pryce won the 100 in 2008 and 2012.

Earlier this week, Jackson’s coach, Stephen Francis, told the Jamaica Gleaner website this week that Jackson “appears OK to me”.

Jackson, however, described the decision to pull out as coming from both herself and Francis.

(WA)