KINGSTON, Jamaica – Repeat Olympic 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce says that Jamaica could have had the women’s sprint relay world record since the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games if the team had the “right attitude.”

“That should have been us in 2008,” Fraser-Pryce told the IAAF series Inside Athletics, referring to the US women team which ran 40.82 seconds to break the long-standing German Democratic Republic’s world record at the London Olympic Games last year.

“I don’t believe in coincidences, things happen because they are supposed to happen that way; and I said that if as a team we had the right attitude (in Beijing) that we had last year, we would have had that world record a long time but we didn’t have that,” Fraser-Pryce commented.

Jamaica’s team, comprising Fraser-Pryce, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Kerron Stewart and Sherone Simpson, ran 41.41 to finish second with a new national record behind the US quartet in London.

“A lot of egos had to do with who wanted to do what and I’ve always said that I don’t believe that I’m a very good starter for a relay; but if they say ‘go and start’, I’m that kind of person.”

With all three 100m medalists, Fraser-Pryce, Stewart and Simpson, and the 200m champion, Campbell-Brown, the Jamaican women started as hot favourites in the Beijing sprint relay but failed to get the baton around the track.

Heated debate would follow as word spread about conflict within the team regarding the leg of the relay some athletes wanted to run.

That debate would continue until the following year when the team took gold at the World Championships but without the aid of Campbell-Brown.