Jamaica sprinter Jackson to skip 100m in Paris

Two-time 200-meter world champion Shericka Jackson of Jamaica will not seek the sprint double at the Paris Olympics after dropping the 100 meters, saying Wednesday that the injury she suffered at a tuneup race earlier this month played a part in the decision.

Jackson said she will still run in her better race, the 200 meters, where she is the only woman other than the world-record holder, the late Florence Griffith Joyner, to finish in under 21.5 seconds.

She had clocked her season’s best of 10.84 seconds to win the 100 at the Jamaican trials but pulled up with a calf cramp in her final outing before the Games in Hungary on July 9.

“It was a combination of things,” Jackson said. “I got hurt, and me and my coach felt like it was a good decision to only run one event.”

Earlier this week, Jackson’s coach, Stephen Francis, told the Jamaica Gleaner website this week that Jackson “appears OK to me.”

Jackson, however, described the decision to pull out as coming from both herself and Francis.

“It was a combination of so much stuff that I personally don’t want to talk about,” she said. “Sometimes you have to go through a rocky road to get where you’re trying to go. And my rocky road has happened to me.”

Jackson had been considered a top contender in the 100 after winning bronze in the event at the Tokyo Games and finishing second at each of the past two world championships. But she has shown better results of late in the 200, winning the world title in 2022 and 2023.

Olympic debutant Tia Clayton and two-time Olympic 100-meter champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will carry Jamaica’s best medal hopes in the event.

American world champion Sha’Carri Richardson, who holds the world leading time of 10.71 seconds this year, will start as the favorite for the 100-meter gold medal.

Jamaica track and field team manager Ludlow Watts told Reuters that Shashalee Forbes would replace Jackson in the 100 meters. Forbes was fourth in the 100 in 11.04 seconds at the Jamaican trials.

Elaine Thompson-Herah, who won the sprint double at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and again in Tokyo three years ago, will not defend her titles after dropping out of the Jamaican trials last month with an Achilles injury.

Also on Wednesday, Nigeria’s Favour Ofili said she will not compete in the women’s 100 meters after her country’s athletics federation and Olympic organizing committee failed to enter her in the event.

“It is with great regret that I have just been told I will not be competing in the 100 metres at this Olympic Games,” the 21-year-old wrote on social media. “I qualified but those with the AFN [Athletics Federation of Nigeria] and NOC [national Olympic committee] failed to enter me. I have worked for 4 years to earn this opportunity. For what?”

Ofili’s coach, LSU’s Dennis Shaver, said the NOC “failed to enter her” in the 100 meters. Neither the AFN nor the Nigeria Olympic Committee immediately responded to requests for comment.

Ofili was registered for the women’s 200 and the 4×100 relay.

The United States has not won the women’s 100 title since Gail Devers topped the podium at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. American Marion Jones crossed the line first in Sydney in 2000 but was stripped of the gold for doping offenses.

The preliminary rounds of the women’s 100 at the Paris Games start Friday with the semifinals and final on Saturday. Jackson insists she is ready for the 200, which starts with qualifying Sunday.

“I always felt good. I felt good about both the 100 and the 200,” she said. “I’m definitely healthy, and I’m definitely OK.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.