ELAINE Thompson ended fellow Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s reign as Olympic champion by winning the women’s 100 metre final at Rio 2016.

Fraser-Pryce had established herself as the queen of women’s sprinting with wins at the Beijing and London Games, in addition to claiming three World Championship titles.
However, Thompson left the rest of the field trailing in her wake with a superb performance, clocking 10.71seconds – a time only she has beaten in 2016 – to win comfortably ahead of the United States’ Tori Bowie (10.83secs).
Fraser-Pryce edged out Marie-Josee Ta Lou to grab bronze – both women given the same time of 10.86, while Dafne Schippers came fifth and English Gardner – who had run 10.74 at the US Olympic trials – came a disappointing seventh.
Although the finalists were separated by a mere eight hundredths of a second across the three semi-finals, Thompson had looked the most accomplished qualifier as she ran 10.88 seconds easing up.
The 24-year-old – a silver medallist over 200m at last year’s World Championships – then made a strong start in the final and never looked likely to be caught after opening up a lead at the halfway stage.
Thompson duly surged home to come within a hundredth of the world-leading time she registered last month, with Bowie and Fraser-Pryce edging out Ta Lou in the battle for the remaining podium places.