Julien Alfred is still catching her breath from Saturday’s 100m showdown in Eugene, but you wouldn’t know it. A narrow loss to Melissa Jefferson-Wooden at the Prefontaine Classic, her first of the season, hasn’t rattled the Olympic champion. If anything, it has sharpened her edge. Even as the cameras turned to Sha’Carri Richardson’s return and Jefferson-Wooden’s big win, Alfred walked away with something else. Clarity, perhaps, or a reminder that her season is far from settled.
At just 24, Alfred holds Saint Lucia’s greatest sporting title. Her name is etched into national history, and yet she carries it with the quiet efficiency of someone who simply prefers to do the work and move forward. In Oslo, three days after Eugene, she’s in her tracksuit, headed to her own birthday dinner but entirely unfazed. There’s no entourage, no press agent hovering nearby. She makes time for conversation like she makes time for training, on her terms and without ceremony.
And in that conversation comes a striking admission. “I just love running the 100m more than the 200m,” Alfred stated bluntly. She doesn’t hesitate. The remark lands with quiet surprise, not because it sounds dramatic, but because it sounds unfiltered. For someone building her resume across both sprint distances, this is not the kind of preference usually spoken aloud. “When I was in college, I always said I didn’t like the 200,” she explains. She further shared with Athletics Weekly, “But that has changed a lot.” The shift, she admits, didn’t come from a personal epiphany. It came from consistent coaching. “I enjoy it now, I am learning how to run it and learning to trust my strength more because I do have a lot more strength.” Just two months earlier, Alfred had lined up for the 200m in Zagreb at the Hanzeković Memorial and won with a time of 22.15 seconds into a slight headwind.
Still, she knows the distance asks more of her. “I don’t think I am a good bend runner,” she says, adding without irony, “but my coach doesn’t agree.” She had taken the first leg in college relays more than once, which demands precision on the turn, but that hasn’t shifted her own view of her technical ability on the curve. “It just takes practice to become a good bend runner — I would hope — and that’s something that I’m working on now.” There is no attempt to cloak her discomfort in self-assurance. She’s open about what she’s still figuring out.
Paris 2024 Olympics – Athletics – Women’s 100m Round 1 – Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France – August 02, 2024. Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia reacts after the heats. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier
Her runner-up finish in Eugene, a close 10.77 against Jefferson-Wooden’s 10.75, both into a headwind, was no setback. It was a reminder that progression is never a straight line. Behind her, Marie-Josee Ta Lou-Smith clocked a season’s best 10.90, and Tina Clayton followed in 11.02. Richardson, returning from a long injury layoff, was well back in ninth. Alfred, meanwhile, walked off the track with no excuses and no theatrics. Just another race, another conversation, and another reason to believe she is not done evolving.
How Julien Alfred nearly walked away before becoming the Olympic champion
Julien Alfred arrived in Paris as a contender. She left as Saint Lucia’s first Olympic champion. Yet, in the quiet weeks after her indoor world title in March, the sprinter nearly chose solitude over stadiums. Success had found her early in the season, but rather than lifting her, it overwhelmed her. What followed was not celebration, but retreat. The woman who would later command the Olympic 100 metres began to question whether she had the will to continue.
Paris 2024 Olympics – Athletics – Women’s 200m Semi-Final 1 – Stade de France, Saint-Denis, France – August 05, 2024. Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia prepares to race. REUTERS/Lisa Leutner
The pressure became internalized, corrosive. “I wasn’t motivated like before,” Alfred confessed to the BBC. She added, “It felt so much pressure whenever I got a chance to race.” Her victory in Glasgow, a moment of triumph on the surface, had left her burdened by expectation. She no longer saw competition as an opportunity, but as a demand. “I felt like I had to win every single time. I felt like I couldn’t do it,” she stated. The sentiment spiraled. She cancelled her scheduled races. She considered ending her season. She thought, seriously, about walking away from athletics entirely.
Her coach, Edrick Floreal, did not try to fix the situation with training plans or tactics. Instead, he gave her space. When the time was right, they spoke. “We had a long conversation and we both cried on the phone,” Alfred recalled. The emotion was raw, the stakes unmistakable. “The last thing he said to me was: ‘Are you ready to be an Olympic champion?’” It was not a motivational ploy, but a personal question posed at the right moment. Alfred said yes. And then, in Paris, she answered again, with her performance, her belief, and a gold medal.
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