How Julien Alfred went from running barefoot in Saint Lucia to becoming the fastest woman in the world

PARIS — Julien Alfred woke up the morning of the Olympic 100-meter final feeling like she needed some extra inspiration. The Saint Lucian sprinter pulled out videos of some of Usain Bolt’s Olympic victories.

“I could already see myself crossing the finish line and becoming Olympic champion,” said Alfred.

Just hours later, Alfred’s vision became a reality. Alfred shot out of the blocks and ran away from American favorite Sha’Carri Richardson with stunning ease, winning in a blazing 10.72 seconds to secure the first Olympic medal of any color for her small Caribbean nation.

As a smiling Alfred crossed the finish line, she tore off her bib number and began pointing at her name. It is a name now etched in history after the 23-year-old ran the eighth-fastest women’s 100m in history on Saturday night on the rain-soaked purple track of the Stade de France.

All week, the path to Olympic gold had seemed clear for Richardson, the reigning world champion who was three years removed from a positive marijuana test that cost her a chance to compete for a medal in Tokyo. When Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce was ruled out of Saturday’s semifinal with a hamstring injury, it ensured that none of the Jamaicans who had taken the Olympic podium in Tokyo would compete in the final in Paris.

In retrospect, it was Alfred whom Richardson should have feared most. The former two-time NCAA women’s 100-meter champion seemed unfazed by the Parisian downpour, her 15-hundredths-of-a-second margin of victory the largest in an Olympic final since 2008.

“The message from my coach was to go out there, warm up confidently and just trust myself and the training that I’ve done,” Alfred said. “Yesterday I was a little nervous. I honestly didn’t know what I was doing. Today I had to go out there and just have fun.”

Alfred’s victory is the culmination of a journey she says began in the capital of Saint Lucia, where she ran barefoot in her school uniform. She eventually caught the attention of her school teachers when she began beating the boys in her first and second grade classes.

Bolt was Alfred’s childhood hero.

“I just wanted to be like him,” she said.

With tears in her eyes, Alfred described Saturday night the grief of losing her beloved father when she was 12. She stopped running for months after he passed away, unable to bear the thought of pursuing their shared passion alone.

“He was always so boastful about his daughter being a future Olympian,” Alfred said.

By the age of 14, Alfred had rediscovered her love for sprinting, but felt she needed a change of scenery to reach her full potential. In 2015, she moved to Jamaica to attend St. Catherine High School and “see how far I could go with the sport.”

The answer was far, unimaginably far for someone who grew up modestly on an island with fewer than 200,000 people and little tradition of athletic success. In 2018, she accepted a scholarship to Texas. In 2022, she won the first of two NCAA titles in the 100. In 2023, she won the 100 and 200 at the NCAAs, turned pro and signed with Puma.

Failure to win a medal in the 100 or 200 meters at last year’s world championships shook Alfred’s confidence. At the time, she said she did not believe she could become Olympic champion in Paris.

Her mindset changed over the course of this season as she posted fast times in both the 100 and 200. Now she is an Olympic champion with the opportunity to use her platform to help children in Saint Lucia understand what is possible for them.

“I really hope we can get a new stadium,” Alfred said. “I really hope we can help the youth of the country believe that they can get out of the ghetto, help them believe that they can make it here.

“We can come from a small position, but still be on the biggest stage.”