(Castries, Saint Lucia September 13, 2025) Saint Lucian Sprint Queen and Olympic Champion Julien Alfred sounded the alarm to all competitors in the Women’s 100m qualifiers at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 2025, by running the fastest qualifying time of the heats.
Alfred, who is fresh off her back-to-back Wanda Diamond League Women’s 100m Championship, is one of the favourites for the Tokyo final, ran 10.93 seconds in Heat 4 without batting an eye, drawing a line in the sand that she is here to dominate womens sprints for some time to come. Coming into the Championships, there was much debate about who the favourite is for the Women’s 100m, with the USA’s Melissa Jefferson-Wooden the only woman to beat Julien this season, while also running sub 10.7 seconds twice. Wooden would also win her heat comfortably in a time of 10.99 seconds for third overall, with Great Britain’s Daryl Neita 10.94 coming in second.
Sha’Carri Richardson was fifth overall in 11.03 seconds; Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, appearing in her final career major championship, advanced in 11.09 as did her Jamaican team-mates Tina Clayton (11.01) and Shericka Jackson (11.04). The top three from each of the seven heats went through plus the three fastest times.
In the semis, Alfred will take on Fraser-Pryce while Richardson will come up against Jackson and Neita with Jefferson-Wooden facing Clayton. The semi finals are slated to begin on Sunday September 14, 2025 at 7:20am ECT with the finals slated to start shortly after at 9:13am ECT.
