Fantastic Shelly Anne blazes to fastest time of the year, falls in love with ‘amazing’ Kenyan crowd

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 7 – Shelly Anne Fraser-Pruce, the third fastest woman of all time and a three-time Olympic champion was left wowed with the amazing Kenyan crowd as she blazed to the fastest 100m time of the year when she clocked 10.67 seconds to win the 100m race at the Kip Keino Classic on Saturday.

The Jamaican ‘pocket rocket’ who was competing in her first 100m of the season was a crowd favourite and the stadium erupted to rapturous cheer when her name was called out and her smiling face beamed across the screens in the stadium.

“I felt really amazing. The crowd is one of the most amazing ever. I loved every bit of it and I feel they gave me the energy to race today,” Fraser-Pryce said after clinching the Continental Gold Tour title.

Fraser-Pryce controlled the race from the blocks to the finish line, being quick off the blocks with a neat reaction time and steading her pace in the second half of the race.

“Definitely I wanted to run a good time and the target to run under 10.6 still remains. It wasn’t an easy race but all in all I feel great to have won,” she said.

Meanwhile, there was heartbreak for Namibian sprint sensation Christine Mboma as she fell with 50m to go after seeming to have pulled her hamstring.

Mboma had started well but approaching the 40m mark started holding her hamstring and ultimately dropped to the track.

Hemida Bassant of Egypt finished second in a Personal best time of 11.02secs while Ray Shannon of the USA timed 11.33secs at third spot.

Kenya’s Maxmilla Imali finished bottom of the pile, but still managed to clock a season’s best time of 11.46, an encouraging performance heading into the African Championships next month.

Meanwhile in the 200m, Nigerian Seyni Aminatou waded off two Americans to win the race in a Personal Best time of 22.43secs with Shannon Ray of the USA also clocking a personal best time of 22.84secs and compatriot Dezerea Bryant clocking 22.92secs at third.