the world championships are on vs

[unusualmusic_lj_archive]

Jamaicans dominate women's 100m final

If you've got a spare dollar and are given to a flutter you might want to get on board the Jamaican women's 4X100m team; you may not get very generous odds.

In the individual women's 100m sprint last night the Jamaicans were simply sensational. Olympic champion Shelly Ann Fraser grabbed the gold with a time of 10.73. It made her the equal third fastest female sprinter in history as she held off fast-finishing compatriot Kerron Stewart. in a thrilling finish.

Only Marion Jones and Florence Griffith-Joyner -- two athletes long tainted by suspicions of drug cheating and in Jones' case suspicions later confirmed -- now stand ahead of her on the all-time list.MORE

article of interest: Unattainable records leave female athletes struggling for acclaim

But perhaps unattainable records are not the only problem. Even in the days when women were breaking sprint records they still didn't get the headlines of their male counterparts. Some may argue that personality is as much a part of the equation – and Bolt's celebration dances certainly add weight to that theory – but Flo Jo ran in one-legged fuchsia tracksuits with six-inch nails, so why were her achievements so often overshadowed by the rivalry between Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis?

The media have a major part to play. Britain's 17-year-old Shaunna Thompson, who won double gold in the sprints at the Commonwealth Youth Games last year, says she sometimes struggles to recall who won the women's 100m at major championships.

"That's one of my events and even I'm forgetting sometimes! People know all the men, but sometimes the women get forgotten about. If Usain Bolt is all you hear about on TV then that sticks in peoples' heads. No one's saying Shelly-Ann Fraser, so everyone's like who's Shelly-Ann Fraser?" But with promoters consistently billing the men's sprints as the blue riband event, the idea that women's events don't deserve prime-time exposure is simply reinforced.MORE

track and field is the only sport that I care enough to follow. Its nice to see the Jamaicans blowup. they have been threatening to for a while.