Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson won Olympic gold in the 200m
Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson won Olympic gold in the 200m to complete a sprint double in Rio.
Thompson, 24, clocked 21.78 seconds to beat Netherlands’ world champion Dafne Schippers by 0.13sec and add the 200m title to the gold she won in the 100m.
USA’s Tori Bowie took bronze in 22.15, while Great Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith, 20, ran 22.31 to finish fifth.
Campbell-Brown won the Olympic 200m title at Athens 2004 and retained it in Beijing 2008, while Fraser-Pryce took 100m gold at both Beijing and London 2012.
“It is very special and a welcoming feel for me,” she said. “Watching Veronica Campbell Brown, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and then putting my name there is an amazing feeling. I think my light has shined.”
Asher-Smith’s light is getting brighter by the week. After coming home in 22.31secs, she told of her joy, “especially after a shaky qualification”.
She added: “I think I still could have done a bit better but I can’t be disappointed with that. It is a learning curve and hopefully I’ll have more world championships and Olympics to get it right.”
“I was quite happy with that considering my rounds didn’t go quite exactly as I hoped and my coach and I planned and I ended up getting into the race last in lane 2 wasn’t a great start.
“But to have pulled a fifth back from there and have been mixing it until 30 to go, 40 to go, I was like really really happy.
“I’ll take that, obviously me being me I want to PB every time and run faster and faster but I don’t think anybody in that race ran a PB, it wasn’t like last year when everyone ran a PB so yeah I’ll take that.
“This year I’ve gone – ‘this is what happened last year – please do not freak out when you see them go like that because this is what they’re going to do’ so I didn’t this year.
“This year I believed a bit more and ok I got lane two but with the bends on this track being quite tight it wasnt the best set up so I thought that I did for me an ok job out of that lane. I think I believed in myself and went for it a bit more – although I got exactly the same place, I will try again next year and the year after that.”
In all, Jamaica have won 10 of the past 11 Olympic golds in the 100m and 200m, with Usain Bolt a strong favourite to extend that record in Thursday’s men’s 200m final
