By Gary Smith, TrackAlerts.Com Contributor
Jamaican sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce says she will only contest the 100m at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing, China next month.
Fraser-Pryce, who won the sprint double at the 2013 world championships in Moscow, Russia, has byes in both the 100m and 200m, but the star sprinter said her coach wants her to concentrate on just the shorter event in Beijing.
However, the 28-year-old says she could return to double duties at the Rio Olympic Games in 2016.
“In Beijing, I’ll only race the 100m,” said Fraser-Pryce at a press conference for the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Paris on Friday.
“It was a decision that was taken by my coach last year that we will opt to do just the 100m this year in order to focus on getting back to where I was in 2008.”
She added: “He believed that I strayed a little bit from the 100m in terms of my explosive start and stuff like that so we are now going back to the 100m and bearing in mind that next year is the Olympic Games.
“The 200m was good, it definitely helped me to run the 100m a little bit better, a little bit stronger but I don’t think my coach has guided me wrong so far, so going back to the 100m for this year, I am looking forward to it even if I think I will be doubling next year.”
Fraser-Pryce is the joint world-leader of the 100m this season with a blistering 10.79 seconds and she will face a very strong lineup at the Paris Diamond League meet on Saturday.
American English Gardner, who has also clocked 10.79secs this turn will also be in the starting lineup.
In total, there will be five women who have recorded sub-11 seconds times already this season and the event is expected to be another Diamond League thriller.
