Shelly-Ann: A Victory for Jamaica, the Caribbean and Sporting Mothers

When Jamaica’s super-athlete Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce romped to victory in the women’s 100 metres at the current World Athletics Championships, leading a 1-2-3 all-Jamaica charge, her victory had significance far beyond her astounding personal achievements.

Her victory, at the age of 35, put her indelible stamp on the athletic Hall of Fame and firmly re-established her claim to be among the greatest, if not the greatest female sprinter of all times. It also re-emphasized the dominance of Jamaica’s female sprinters and ensured that the Caribbean will continue to be named among the foremost global track and field performing regions.

But Shelly-Ann’s triumph had significance even beyond the track and the pantheon of the world’s greatest athletes. In a social sense it again raised the profile of black women and their invaluable contribution to sport and its development. It ensured that women deserve an equal place on the podium of sporting stars.

There is however, an equally important aspect to Shelly’s victory, her 10th World Championship gold medal. For not only is she in her mid-thirties winning a world title fully 14 years after her first Olympic gold, but she is one of a growing number of “sporting moms”, women who returned to competition after giving birth to children.

Not only is this a triumph in a physiological sense, it also demonstrates that women can take up the extra challenges of motherhood and still achieve sporting excellence. In addition, her victory, like those of her sister “moms’ in sport, represents a victory over age-old prejudices against women.

For hundreds of years women have fought against the backward concept imposed by men, that not only is women’s place “in the home”, but that one pregnant, they should give up any sense of their own identity and settle to become mothers in the background. This pertained even to employment and we recall that not so long ago, many women, married or unmarried, had to give up their jobs if they became pregnant.

Today Shelly has joined an impressive array of female sporting stars who have demonstrated that they can continue to excel in sport even after giving birth to their lovely children. The Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen, was one of the earliest pioneers just after World War 2.She competed at the London Olympics in 1948 as 30-year old mother of two. That did not stop her from winning four gold medals, earning herself the nickname “the Flying Housewife”.

Since then several other women have followed in her footsteps. Allyson Felix, the most decorated US track and field athlete, won medals at both last year’s Olympics as the current World Championships; the UK has had “medal moms” in the person of Jessica Ennis-Hill and Paula Radcliffe, the latter a marathon “mom”. There is also New Zealand’s greatest female athlete Dame Valerie Adams.

In other sports, tennis’ greatest-ever Serena Williams, a successor to Australia’s Margaret Court as tennis superstar and “mom”, the Belgian Kim Clijsters, and today’s Belarusian Victoria Azarenka all attest to the validity of sporting life after childbirth. There is the female basketballer Skylar Diggins-Smith, current US footballer striker Alex Morgan, cricketers Bismah Maroof (Pakistan) and Amy Satterwaithe (New Zealand), Dana Vollmer in swimming and Kristin Armstrong in cycling, all part of this wonderful family.

Shelly-Ann has forcefully reinforced the point and helped to further bury the discrimination of centuries.