The look of shock on the face of the 23-year-old from Dallas, Texas took a long, long time to wear off as one after another of the women’s 100m finalists she had just beaten came over to congratulate her on her first global victory.
But when the realisation sunk in, an athlete who had suffered such disappointment in connection with the last World Athletics Championships behaved as if electrified.
All the focus had been at the centre of the field, where Jamaicans Shericka Jackson and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce – the latter seeking a victory that would have given her six individual world 100m titles, matching the record haul of Sergei Bubka in the pole vault .
But as Jackson won that particular contest, the 23-year-old US sprinter, who had earned a non-automatic qualifying place after finishing third behind Jackson and the Ivory Coast’s Marie-Josee Ta Lou in the semi-finals despite clocking 10.84, ran her own fluent and ultimately successful race from lane nine to win in a championship record of 10.65.
Jackson, who will later defend her world 200m title here, took silver in 10.72, with the 36-year-old Fraser-Pryce adding another medal to her collection, this time bronze, after clocking 10.77 to finish one place ahead of Ta Lou, who clocked 10.81.
Jackson and Ta Lou had qualified joint-fastest, equal to the thousandth on 10.79, the fastest time ever in a World Championships women’s semi-final.
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