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Before leaving primary school, Julien Alfred had a goal in mind: being “the female bolt”. Sitting in a hotel in Kensington decorated with an Olympic gold necklace, a ring and, above all, to have won the 100 -meter gold medal in Paris this summer, this dream has come true.
Alfred was a stranger and an unknown parent when he was held on the starting blocks on the purple track in the pouring rain at the Stade de France on August 3. Sha’Carri Richardson had won gold at the world championships the previous year and was the favorite, when no one from St Lucia had never won an Olympic medal in all color. 10.72 seconds later, the Caribbean Island had a new hero and Alfred’s life has completely changed.
“Crazy” is the word that the 23 -year -old uses to describe the period from Paris. She speaks to Telegraph Sport After arriving in London on a flight from a post-Olympic event in Portugal and adds: “[It’s been a] Whirlwind for sure, but I felt a lot of love and support of many people in recent months, from Sainte-Lucie, from the whole world, the Caribbean … on the whole, it was a big feeling. “”
St Lucia has a population of less than 200,000 inhabitants and participated for the first time in the Olympic Games in 1996 in Atlanta. Despite the sending of athletes to disciplines of athletics, swimming and sailing, the nation had not seen anyone standing on the podium before Alfred.
It is not surprising that the Caribbean little nation did everything to celebrate Alfred’s achievements (she also won money in 200m). This included a national day of Julien Alfred on September 27, when a crowd of capacity attended a free concert at Daren Sammy Cricket Ground, a stadium named after another famous sportsman St Lucian.
A section of the Millennium highway has been renamed Julien Alfred Highway; She received a price of a million dollars from the government, as well as an area of 10,720 feet in the field, commemorating her victory time. Alfred’s face will also appear in a series of exercise books and there will be a stamp designed in commemoration.
When asked if his life is now different from that before Paris, the answer is simple: “Certainly. I am more recognized in person and wherever I travel. Even family members. Now people know that they are my brothers and sisters, they are also recognized and they are approached in town, at work, so it has also changed life. »»
“ It has become really competitive in primary school ”
Alfred’s athletics journey began in primary school. She remembers the race for her color house in Ciceron RC Combined School In Castries, The St Lucian Capital: “Run against young girls, and even boys sometimes, when he became really competitive in my primary school – I think that it was my first souvenir of Sprint.
However, his life could have taken a very different direction without some key interventions. Alfred’s talent was recognized not by an athletics coach but by the Brenda Virgil school librarian. She presented Alfred to the training of Cuthbert Modeste (also known as TWA Ti ne) and the age of nine, the training has become more regited over the next three years.
However, after losing his father at the age of 12, Alfred took a break in the sprint, then stopped participating completely in sport. She returned to the track that because of her childhood coach; Modeste went to get her in the Ciceron community and encouraged her to return to the sprint.
Her persuasive powers paid a decade later when Alfred won this Olympic final and it was her father to whom she thought in Paris. “I think of God and my father, who could not see me,” she said during her press conference after the race, with a secure gold medal. “Dad, it’s for you. I miss you. I did it for him, I did it for my coach and God.
‘Usain Bolt was my idol’
Preparing for a final is something that all athletes do differently. Some prefer silent contemplation, others are noisy, trying to escape other opponents or pump upwards. For Alfred, she returned to her idol bolt and saw some of her best moments to visualize hers.
“In sixth year, we were asked what we wanted to be when we grew up and I said” the Usain Bolt woman “, explains Alfred. “It’s very creaky now, but I wanted to be like him.
“I grew up looking at him, looking at all his races. We had no Saint-Luciens in the race, so I always wanted him to win, I wanted Usain Bolt to win, he was my idol. I looked up towards him.
It is a part of her life that completed the loop when she was sitting in the Paris Olympic village: “Before the Olympic Games, I had to return to this inner child and look how great it was and M ‘Imagine as being just like him, so I really had to do it in the morning of my race, the day of the finals.
“Before the day of the final, I made a lot of visualizations with my coach. So I think at that time, I woke up, I just wanted to wear it to a different level and imagine myself by crossing the line and celebrating and being as good as it.
Alfred can be inspired by Bolt, but it has adopted a different approach to the spotlight. Bolt was known for his brand celebrations, his expansive brand approvals and his funny personality. Other sprinters such as the Richardson and Noah Lyles of the United States are also known as extroverts and have attracted a global audience in sport, with their disciples on Instagram in millions of dollars.
However, Alfred admits that she “does not like social media too much”, despite her own next one, going from 30,000 modest before the Olympic Games at 154,000 before Netflix Sprint 2. Although she is in the second series of the documentary, Alfred also remains uncertain if she will look at him, admitting: “I am not the type of person to listen to myself, when I am on television or to YouTube, because I ‘Hear my voice makes me cringe. A lot.”
It is clear that sport itself is Alfred’s passion. She cuts a relaxed silhouette away from the track, smiling and laughing during Telegraph SportThe photo session of the photo while she is preparing for a week in London, but once she is on this starting line, there is a concentration of steel.
“It’s almost like an alter ego,” she says. “Sometimes I can be just regular, have a little chatter as we are now, or a little laughing with someone and speaking so calmly. But when I’m on the track, I’m not talking. I have no friends.
“I don’t care who you are or the quality of our friendship outside of athletics, it’s just a whole other state of mind and I’m hungry.”
“ I had to adapt not to be with a family ”
It was this hunger that led Alfred’s career and saw her moving abroad twice before he was 18 years old.
At 14, Alfred left his friends and family to exploit his Sprint capacity in Jamaica. She becomes a little emotional by recalling how difficult it was to leave the house when he is “very young”, saying: “First of all, I am not with a family. It was something I had to adapt. I don’t think I fully suited myself to be far from my family during the three years I spent there.
“But the difference in culture, the language, the environment of what sport was, what the sprint and the field of athletics looked like in general in Sainte-Lucie, compared to Jamaica, is completely different. “”
It was the sports prowess of Jamaica who made the decision were worth it to Alfred, who says: “We hear about Elaine [Thompson-Herah]We hear about Shelly [-Ann Fraser-Pryce]We hear about Usain Bolt, so I think that was one of the reasons I wanted to go to this environment, knowing that the big ones came out.
“As a child, you are delighted to go on an adventure sometimes, you are simply curious. I think at that time, it was just “I want to go to Jamaica”, so I wanted to take advantage of it, and I took it and took advantage of it. »»
Three years later, Alfred moved again, this time in Texas to train under Edrick Floréal, a double Olympian from Canada. It was another difficult experience when Alfred moved into dormitories alone, but it developed more as a sprinter in the events of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
“He was someone I felt was simply supposed to be part of my trip,” she said about Floréal, who also trains Dina Asher-Smith from Great Britain. She attributes to the coach to help him transform the pressure of having an entire country that looks at her in motivation to deliver.
This approach helped her to deliver the first medal in Saint Lucia during a world championship in March, winning gold in the 60m indoor in Glasgow, before creating more history at the Olympic Games.
“It always seems surreal to be honest,” says Alfred about the moment she realized that she had gained gold. She crossed the line with the eighth time faster in the 100m of the story and celebrated by removing her bib, holding him in the air from the camera and pointing her name, but a few months thinking of its next goals.
“Unless someone mentions it or talked about it, I don’t really think about it. I think now I have almost started from that because I prepare for another season and there are world championships to come, so I have prepared not to become too comfortable now that I won Olympic gold, but I always realized how great I did in Paris.
No matter what she realizes, she has undoubtedly inspired a new generation of Saint-Lucian sprinters, just as Bolt inspired it.
