Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce: ‘Every part of my being believes I can run faster’

I n the city where she expects to ironclad her legacy at the Olympics next year, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is reliving the moment she went viral on the school run. You may have seen the clip of the greatest female sprinter in history, baseball cap back to front, thrashing a field of fellow mums on her son’s sports day in Jamaica recently. But, as Fraser-Pryce reveals for the first time, there was more to it than meets the eye. It boiled down to pride after a fall – as well as an audacious challenge from another parent.

“Two weeks beforehand she started sending me photos of her working out in the gym. And then she told me she was coming for me!” says Fraser-Pryce, her smile lighting up a gunmetal grey day in Paris. “I was like, ‘You can’t be serious girl!’”. But the friend, whose daughter is in her five-year-old son’s Zyon’s class, insisted she wouldn’t be backing down. “And when we got to sports day, she even started giving me the eyes, trying to psyche me out.”

Yet while she had her track spikes in her car, Fraser-Pryce didn’t bite until her son fell in one event and came third in the obstacle race, and her husband could only finish fourth in the dad’s sprint. At that point she decided enough was enough, and she had to uphold the family honour.

“Imagine leaving with a bronze medal and a fourth place,” she says, laughing with delight. “It wouldn’t have looked good. So I just had to show up. I had to preserve my name.” She took things seriously enough to warm up. And then, to the accompaniment of cheering kids, delivered another exhibition of speed to win by half the length of the grass track, with her friend back in second.

We have become used to such breathless displays ever since the Jamaican burst on to the scene by