Saint Lucia's sprint queen Julien Alfred reflects on her journey to olympic glory

The sprint queen from Saint Lucia, Julien Alfred, during a recent interview with Sky News talked about her difficult journey to greatness. The interview took place during Alfred’s official visit to London as the tourism ambassador of Saint Lucia.

The 100m gold and 200m silver Olympic medallist recalled that she remembers screaming and stated, “I remember screaming so loud and just bursting into tears, just knowing all my hard work and sacrifices. Like, you know, they've paid off and knowing how hard it was to get to that point in my career.”

Alfred said that all  she could do was just cry and talked about all the pressure that she put on herself after after she endorsed that she has to deliver every single time and noted that her coach took her off the track, took her out of competition so she can just focus on her mental and physical health as well.

Calling it a very ‘hard time,’ the Olympic Champion said that she felt that she was not going to continue and feels like she had the capacity to get on the line again and to represent her country Saint Lucia, a Caribbean island with a population of just 180,000.

Her victory at Paris Olympics was the small island’s first Olympic medal of any colour in their history and they are happy that they won their first ever Olympic medals not only gold but also silver in the 200 as well.

Alfred noted, “So being able, you know, to celebrate with me, it was such a great feeling being back on island and, you know, it was just happy. Everybody was just happy celebrating and they really showed up for me.”

Notably, Alfred had to leave home at a very young age to train in Jamaica, where she was inspired by Usain Bolt but she still has not got the chance to meet him but she now finds herself to be the new inspiration for a new generation. 

As she met her fans after securing the medals at the international games, she saw many of the youngsters crying after seeing her in real life and after actually meeting her live. 

During the interview, the host of Sky News was heard calling Alfred very ‘humble’ and said that she is the fastest woman on the planet. The anchor said that even after winning such a huge title, one cannot meet a more understated champion and she behaves just like a former student from Texas and is very humble who just happened to apply herself for her entire life and then run 10.72 seconds, which was the fastest time on the day. 

She added that Julian Alfred, the Olympic 100m champion, the fastest woman on the planet and the most decorated female sprinter of the year is a lovely girl.