TOKYO, Japan — Elaine Thompson-Herah will start the defense of her Olympic 100m title from the second heat on Day One of the track and field program on Friday here at the Tokyo 2020 Games.
The women’s 100m heats will close out the morning session on the first day of athletics at 12:15 p.m. Friday morning Tokyo time, 11:15 pm ET on Thursday night.
Thompson-Herah, the 2016 sprint double champion, will be in lane seven in her heat where the Jamaican will take on fellow Caribbean representative Kelly-Ann Baptiste of Trinidad and Tobago, along with Tatjana Pinto of Germany, and Mujinga Kambundji of Switzerland.
READ MORE: Day 1: Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games start lists, schedule, how to watch live
Thompson-Herah has a season’s best of 10.71s, which is only 0.01seconds shy of her lifetime mark.
World leader and two-time Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce starts in heat five and will race from lane four. The Jamaican 2008 and 2012 Olympic champion is hunting her third Games title and she enters with a blistering personal best time of 10.63 seconds, done this year in Kingston, Jamaica.
Going up against Fraser-Pryce in the heat are Ajla Del Ponte of Switzerland, the reigning European 60m champion and Nigerian Nzubechi Grace Nwokocha who both produced lifetime bests earlier this season.
Another Jamaican, and perhaps the surprising package this season in the short sprints, Shericka Jackson, will open her Olympic campaign from the seventh heat. Jackson enters these Games in good shape, having clocked a sizzling 10.77s PB at the 2021 Jamaica Trials last month.
READ MORE: Joella Lloyd, Amya Clarke advanced from 100m preliminary round
Accompanying her in this heat is American Jenna Prandini and Trinidad and Tobago’s Michelle-Lee Ahye who seems to be rounding into good form at the right time of the season.
Elsewhere, Dina Asher-Smith of Great Britain the silver medalist in this discipline at the world championships in Doha in 2019, will compete in heat one against the USA’s Teahna Daniels and Murielle Ahouré from the Ivory Coast. Antigua and Barbuda sprinter Joella Lloyd who advanced from the preliminary round earlier this morning will also start in heat one.
In the meantime, Javianne Oliver of the United States will be the leading starter in heat three, while Ivorian Marie-Josee Ta Lou is the favorite to take the fourth heat and Blessing Okagbare of Nigeria headlines heat six.
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