He is now a world champion, a more-than-satisfying reward after a year in which he trained with the goal of not making the same mistake again.
The 28-year-old executed the curve perfectly and ran the 200m in a second-fastest time of 21.45 seconds, to lead Jamaica’s 1-2 finish on Thursday night at the World Championships. She beat 100m champion Shelley-Ann Fraser-Price by 0.36 to the finish line.
Jackson was one of the medal favorites in Tokyo last year, but a miscalculation in the middle of his preliminary heat slowed him down. She couldn’t catch up until she realized what had happened. She finished fourth and did not run in the final.
It consumed him so much that he refused to watch replays of the race. Learn from him.
“Sometimes, it’s hard to come back from despair,” Jackson said. “I don’t want that. I want to win whenever I’m competing.”
For support, she leans on Fraser-Price, 35, who shows no signs of slowing down. That’s what happened in Tokyo, when Jackson was in tears and Fraser-Price was there to console him. It was the same situation again on Thursday when they shared a more pleasant feeling – excitement.
“It’s something you can take for granted when you see others hold back from despair,” Fraser-Price said. “It’s really wonderful to see him running.”
Defending champion Dina Asher-Smith of Britain took the bronze and prevented it from being back-to-back sprint sweeps for Jamaica, as the Americans did in the men’s 100 and 200. Ellen Thompson-Hera, who won the 200 Olympics and finished third in the 100 here in the world, finished seventh in the race.
“We were expecting 1-2-3. We’ll celebrate 1-2,” Jackson said. “We came here to do our best and our best performance was very good. We gave two big medals for the country. We are very grateful.”
A few seconds after the win, sprint icon Usain Bolt tweeted “brilliant” and punctuated it with two Jamaican flags—one each for Jackson and Fraser-Price.
How fast Jackson was: His time was second only to one of the most sacred points on the books—21.34 by Florence Griffith-Joyner at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. Jackson broke the old world-championship record of 21.63 set by Daphne Shippers of the Netherlands in 2015.
Records, however, are not on Jackson’s mind.
“Great execution will bring faster times,” Jackson explained. “You don’t think about breaking world records because when you go into a race with the timing in your mind, and don’t meet those expectations, you let yourself down.”
Not at this time. Not at Hayward Field.
Jackson not only made it into his silver medal in the 100 from Sunday night, but also eased up on a painful memory of the Tokyo Games that fueled him for a long time. She said she plans to watch that race at the end and then another.
“200 tonight,” Jackson said.
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