Saint Lucia’s Julien Alfred storms to Olympic women’s 100m title | CBC Sports

Sha’Carri Richardson’s comeback story hit a brick wall Saturday when Julien Alfred romped in the rain to the 100-meter title in 10.72 seconds to bring the first-ever Olympic medal to her island country of Saint Lucia.

Racing one lane to the left of Richardson, and with water from a fast-moving storm puddling on the purple track in the Stade de France, Alfred got off to a fantastic start, then powered through the rain and beat Richardson by .15 seconds — about three body lengths.

It was the biggest margin in the women’s Olympic 100 since 2008.

Richardson’ training partner, American Melissa Jefferson, finished third in 10.92 seconds.

WATCH | Alfred captures women’s 100m gold:

All week long, the field seemed to be clearing for Richardson, the reigning world champion who was making her Olympic debut after a positive test for marijuana cost her a chance to race three years ago in Tokyo.

When Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce abruptly withdrew from the semifinal, which went off about 90 minutes before the gold-medal race, the entire Jamaican team that had swept the podium in Tokyo was out of the 100.

One island’s loss is another’s gain.

The strongest contender left was Alfred, who hails from the Eastern Caribbean island with a population of around 180,000. She was the only Olympic entrant besides Richardson to break 10.8 this year — and when she and Richardson lined up next to each other in the semifinals, it was a preview of things to come.

One of the most anticipated races of the Olympic track meet was never a contest.

Alfred had two steps on the entire field at the 40-meter mark, while Richardson, whose starts have been an issue at times this summer, laboured to get to full speed.

The American, her arms pumping wide in Lane 7, looked to be making up a bit of ground when Alfred leaned into the finish line. But there was too big a gap between them and the real contest was the one between Richardson and Jefferson for second.

America’s lone gold medal of the day came from Ryan Crouser, who earned a three-peat in the shot put. Another American silver went to the 4×400 mixed relay team, which got reeled in by Femke Bol of the Netherlands in the anchor lap.

Jasmine Moore won a bronze medal in the triple jump competition, won by Thea Lafond, setting herself up for a possible double when she competes in long jump later this week.

Earlier in the day, Noah Lyles finished second (10.04) in a sluggish first-round qualifying heat to make the semifinals in the men’s 100. The semifinals and finals for that are set for Sunday.

Leduc just misses berth in women’s 100m final

Audrey Leduc of Gatineau, Que., just missed out on advancing to Saturday night’s final.

The 25-year-old ran 11.10 to finish fifth in Heat 3 one day after running a personal best and breaking her own Canadian record with a time of 10.95 seconds.

“I’m happy,” she said. “For sure would have wanted to go to the final. But that’s fine, I have the 200 metres tomorrow so my goal is just to go there and execute what I didn’t execute today.”

The first round of the women’s 200 is on Sunday morning at Stade de France.

Leduc did find the atmosphere of an Olympic semifinal to be different than what she’s used to.

“I wouldn’t say it was intimidating but it’s for sure different than what I’m used to doing back home,” she said. “It’s not the same level.”

The University of Laval product came into the Olympics enjoying a breakout year in which she had snapped multiple Canadian records.

She broke Angela Bailey’s 36-year-old national mark in the 100 with a 10.96 back in April. She then broke the 200 record with a time of 22.36 seconds in June.

Leduc had not run faster than 11.38 seconds in the 100 and 23.62 in the 200 last year.

She said she would not have guessed she’d be 12th at an Olympics if asked three months ago.

“I’d be surprised,” Leduc said. “I would say, ‘Hmm, I’m not sure.’ Who knows but for now I’m just really happy with the result.”