Jamaica’s trio of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Tia Clayton and Shashalee Forbes all advanced automatically to the semi-finals of the women’s 100m as the track and field competition at the Olympics got underway at Paris’ Stade de France on Friday.

Fraser-Pryce, who is competing at her fifth and final Olympic Games, looked easy as she clocked 10.92 seconds (0.8m/s), her 86th sub-11 seconds race of her illustrious career, as she finished second behind Marie-Josee TaLou-Smith of the Ivory Coast who won in 10.87 seconds – fastest in the
round with the Jamaican next best.

Clayton, running with a strapped-up right ham string, got off to a fast start before easing through the finish line in second place, running 11.00 seconds (1.2m/s) as Audrey Leduc ran a Canadian national record 10.95 seconds to win.

Forbes, who was a last minute replacement for three-time national champion Shericka Jackson, was also second in her heat in 11.19 seconds (-0.4m/s) behind American Twanisha Terry’s 11.15 seconds.

The semi-finals are set for 12:50pm Jamaican time on Saturday and the final set for 2:20pm.
-Paul A Reid