With three Olympic and 10 world sprint titles to her name, the Jamaican sprinter has a career most could only dream of. But she still feels like she has a point to prove

An injury issue might have delayed the launch, but 10-time world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce – the ball of speed and strength known as “pocket rocket” – is currently to be found hard at work on being ready for lift-off this summer.

The 36-year-old Jamaican has given herself a hard act to follow after producing a season of astonishing velocity and consistency in 2022, becoming the first woman ever to run under the 10.70 barrier for 100m seven times in the same year. One of those performances also brought with it her 10^th world title.

Hers is a story of longevity and endurance, but the woman who burst on to the global sprinting scene with 100m gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics knows the clock is starting to tick on her career at the top level. The plan is to go out with a bang, at the World Championships in Budapest and then the Paris Olympics.

Through her Pocket Rocket Foundation, Fraser-Pryce is already working on passing along the wealth of knowledge she has gleaned over the years through mentoring young athletes. She sat down with AW to talk about what keeps her coming back for more, the biggest lessons she has learned and why she had to prove a point by recently winning the parents race at her son’s school sports day.

Was 2022 the season of your life?

I would say so. After 2021 [finishing second to Elaine Thompson-Herah at the Tokyo Olympics], I went back to the drawing board. I’ve always been that sort of person where you set your targets and if you miss them it gives you so much more desire to go back and work at them.

I really just focused on executing my coach’s plan but there was something a little bit different – I was having a lot more fun with it. [I made sure there was] not too much pressure, just really enjoying it, because I think I’ve reached a point where I have nothing to prove to anyone but, at the same time, I think I have a lot to prove to myself.

There’s a difference when you believe something and you know what you’re capable of or what’s within your reach. You want to make sure that you’re pushing yourself towards it and trying to accomplish it.

I think that was me last year, where I just totally forgot about anybody else’s expectation and just focused on what I know I can do.

As you say, you have nothing left to prove, so what keeps you coming back?

I used to refrain from stating clearly what I want and I believe I can run faster – that’s really what has kept me here. I believe that with every fibre of my being. To be able to run 10.6 consistently last year definitely means that there’s a drop to come. When it comes, I don’t know but that’s what I’m working towards.

I’m always excited about something new, something undiscovered. I’m also growing my own mind. I wake up every morning and I go to practice and I’m like, “man, I’m still doing this”. I still feel good, I still feel hungry.

How has your relationship with training changed over the years? Is it something you still have a big appetite for?

I think that this stage of my career is really about impact, showing other athletes what you can do if you really have that conviction. For me, it’s getting up every morning and still feeling like there’s something I’m chasing – that it’s right there, I’m almost touching it and just need a little more push.

Gone are the days when, at 36, most if not the majority of athletes would have been retired but ageism is something that we should talk about because I hate the fact that a basketball player or football player or a NASCAR driver or Formula One driver gets to continue but why can’t I continue? It’s my job and, as long as I’m showing up healthy, then I’m gonna show up and I’m going to rewrite the books and I’m excited about that.

I don’t get involved in what’s unnecessary because I realise that I have a lot more work in my legs and I have to be mindful of how I’m spending my day.

I recent went to a football match for my son’s team, and I wanted to jump on the field and scream and shout ‘go, go, go’ but I knew that I needed to go to practice so I had to sit and cheer from the sidelines. I send his dad out there. I’m like: “Go cheer”. That was delegated!

I’ll see you in Paris ??? https://t.co/aiUYNolaBg

— ShellyAnnFraserPryce (@realshellyannfp) July 18, 2023

You recently said you were still learning. After so many years at the top what do you think you still have to learn?

I don’t think I have the best technique. I really have to work hard to cement it. It’s something that I have to go to the line and actively process in my head to say ‘this is what we’re doing, this is what we’re doing Shelly’ so I’m still learning to do that.

I think one of the things is learning to do it being relaxed, as well as making sure that it’s automatic, it’s something that I can switch on and switch off if I need to.

A lot of that takes concentration and replicating it daily in practice. It must be consistent and I think the more times I’m able to do it is, the easier it will become.

I’m still learning technically, how to run the 100m and every September, October when I go back to practice, it’s like I go with a clean slate. There’s nothing written on the board.

I draw from experiences sure from the memory box, but at the same time I’m going there brand new as if I’ve never learned anything before.

You mentor a lot of younger athletes. What’s the best piece of advice you can pass on to them or the best way to help them?

At the end of the day, it’s not always going to be my way that will get you your result but there are things from my journey that are for every athlete. When we talk about preparation, or we talk about being in that mindset or being committed to the task and following through, it’s for everyone.

I think mentorship is important because I think for a lot of people, they just want somebody who shares a similar outlook – a vision.

As athletes we prepare, we train hard, so that we can win.

In the quest for winning, there are a series of things that we do to get to that point and one of the things that helps us is mentorship, being able to be with somebody who has experienced it and can be a guide.

It’s also important to be honest and open as an athlete. A lot of people are not honest with themselves where you can sit down and be like: “Yeah, I won but I don’t think it went well, I need to go back and try it again.”

That’s the thing with complacency. I’ve seen it with athletes where they are going into a race and they might have won, but they probably did the worst thing they could possibly have during the race and they walk away thinking like: “Yes, that’s it!”.

Yeah, you’re glad you won but you still didn’t do what you needed to do because chances are in the next race there will be a lot more intensity and you need to do the right things, because you won’t have any room to make the kind of error that you made.

I think that’s why mentorship is so important, because you can give that guideline, you can say to the next athlete, this is what you’re chasing, you have to be consistent, you have to know what you want, you have to go after it and when you fall down, you have to get back up again, or you have to try again and try it another way. You have to risk everything. Every morning when I get up to go to practice, I’m risking sleep, I’m risking injuries, I’m risking a lot of things but I don’t think about it in that perspective. I think about what I’m going to gain from all of that.

Who have been the biggest influences on you?

Growing up, it was my mum. She ran but she got pregnant when she was younger and didn’t get fulfilled. I would see her day in day out getting up and going to work. She’s the first person I know that was committed and dedicated and was relentless in her pursuit of making sure that she provided for us. Those are the things I took on.

I never wanted to go to practice. I am not ashamed to say I didn’t want to do track at first. I was forced! I was forced because my mum thought, being from a poor community, this was going to be my way out. I never got it until later when I actually accepted that: “Okay, this could possibly be true”.

She really inspired me to push even when I didn’t want to push. She was always just there. She showed up for everything. My grandmother played a big part, too. It’s because of her that I went to the University of Technology in Kingston and began working with [my former coach] Stephen Francis.

Right now my son keeps me motivated. He’s five years old and I see a lot of me in him where he’s so competitive. He looks up to me. When I’m leaving for practice he goes: “Bye pocket rocket.”

When he gets a little older and he’ll be able to read about me or know about me, I hope he’ll be inspired to not give up and to really go after his dreams and to see that he made me a lot better. A lot of people may think that when it comes to sprinting or being an athlete that having a kid right before you’re 30 and to then come back to compete is a mistake. And I’m like: “Look what you did. You’re the reason for this.” So I’m hoping that he’ll be inspired.

We've seen the race, now for the celebration ?

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce wanted to win at her son's Sports Day in the parents race ?

You can't take the competitiveness out of someone who is a triple Olympic and ten-time world champion ??

? @Annmerita pic.twitter.com/EdljDaT0Me

— AW (@AthleticsWeekly) April 1, 2023

And he inspired you to take part in the parents’ race at his school sports day, when the video of you winning went viral?

For his very first sports day, when he was 18 or 19 months old, I couldn’t be there because I had a meet and it hurt me. This was our first official school sports day and we got to shirts with his name printed on it.

I had no plans of running. I was leaving it up to the boys to handle it. My husband runs every morning so I was like: “There’s no way these other daddies are going to beat him.” But then my son fell and got a bronze medal and my husband didn’t make the podium.

It was a good thing I wore my training shoes, I wore my leggings. And I warmed up. There was no way we were going home without a gold medal. I could not believe when I got to the line and every single person came out – they were so excited to see me run.

To really be in a moment like that, I think that’s what it’s all about. The kids were so excited and they literally became like my own little Diamond League.

It also served as a reminder of just how fast elite sprinters are

My friends were like: “You didn’t have to run so fast” but I said: “I wasn’t running fast. I was striding out.” They said it was a parents race. I happen to be an Olympian but I’m a parent. I showed up and I would feel terrible if I jogged because that’s just not who I am. If I’m going to show up, I’m going to give 100 per cent all the time.

Pocketrocketfoundation.net