Elaine Thompson-Herah teams up with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s coach ahead of Paris Olympics

Elaine Thompson-Herah will open her season at the Bermuda USATF Grand Prix

ATHLETICS Elaine Thompson-Herah teams up with Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s coach ahead of Paris Olympics

Joel Omotto 22:00 - 20.11.2023

Jamaican sprint queens Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce will now train under the same stable after the former chose the latter’s coach as her new tactician

Jamaican five-time Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah has appointed Reynaldo Walcott as her new coach following her split from Shanikie Osbourne earlier this month, her management company said on Monday.

Walcott has also been coaching her compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce since the 2020 season. The two sprinters have seemingly maintained a consistently frosty relationship.

Andi Sports Management, Thompson-Herah's agency, stated on Thursday that the separation from Osbourne resulted from a "breakdown in negotiations on a compensation package" sought by Osbourne.

Thompson-Herah and Walcott begin their collaboration less than a year before she defends her 100m and 200m titles at the Paris Games.

Eight months before the Paris 2024 Olympics, Thompson-Herah split with her coach before she attempts to defend her sprint titles in the French capital.

"The package proposed by (Osbourne)...was extremely excessive and without any flexibility to negotiate by the other party," Thompson-Herah's management team said last week.

"Collectively, we had no choice but to seek the services of another coach.

"With the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France, fast approaching, Mrs Thompson-Herah is fully focused on her preparations for the season and the defence of her Olympic titles."

Thompson-Herah will join Walcott, who heads up the Elite Performance Track Club based out of Kingston, Jamaica.

The club’s roster contains some of Jamaica’s most prominent track and field athletes and includes hurdlers Rasheed Broadbell, Rushell Clayton, and Megan Tapper, to name just a few.

The standout name, however, is Fraser-Pryce and it means that both she and Thompson-Herah will go into the Paris 2024 Olympics under the stewardship of the same coach.

The pair will therefore re-unite in a training camp once again for the first time in three years, given both Fraser-Pryce and Thompson-Herah used to be at MVP Track Club.

Since joining Walcott, Fraser-Pryce has gone on to claim her fifth world 100m crown and run a personal best of 10.60, which still has her third on the 100m all-time list.

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