Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce has challenged Sweden’s pole vault superstar Armand ‘Mondo’ Duplantis to a 100m race at next year’s Memorial Van Damme Diamond League meeting in Brussels, Belgium.

The five-time World Championships 100m gold medallist made the light-hearted challenge at Thursday’s pre-competition press conference for Friday’s Memorial Van Damme Diamond League meeting where Fraser-Pryce is scheduled to run the 100m.

“So, Mondo, how fast are you in the 100 metres … against me,” she asked the Swedish star.

“I would beat you,” he responded.

The Jamaican, however, questioned the pole vault world record holder’s sprinting history, asking how long his run-up was.

Fraser-Pryce was visibly surprised when he said his run-up is 45 metres and that he used to run 100 metres a lot in high school.

“But that was five years ago,” Fraser-Pryce responded, to which Duplantis, who holds both indoors and outdoors world records in the pole vault responded, “but I am much faster now than I was five years ago.”

They sealed the bet with a handshake as Meeting Director Kim Gevaert, who was leading the press conference, agreed they could arrange the race.

According to World Athletics, Duplantis has a wind-aided 100m personal best of 10.57 seconds (2.1m/s) done in July 2018, while Fraser-Pryce had a lifetime best of 10.60 seconds set last year.

– Paul A Reid