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Julien Alfred, sprint queen
In the Paris Olympics, Julien Alfred, Took gold in the 100 meters and silver in the 200. She followed that up in early 2025 by winning the 60 meters in the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow. This year she has recorded 6 Diamond League victories – Stockholm, Oslo, Monaco, London, Brussels at the Diamond League final in Zurich. I was privileged to be in the stadium for all 6 Diamond Leagues, to chat to her after some of them and to sit down with her – on her birthday of all days – in Oslo. I wish to add that for a global superstar, obtaining the interview and the amount of time that she gave me was beyond exemplary. In the 2023 World Championships she came 4th and 5th so may feel that she has unfinished business with the world outdoors in Tokyo.
Her talent was first noticed in elementary school, in 4th grade when she started beating the boys. She told me she normally beat them “but if I lost, I’d cry”. She grew up in the small Caribbean island, St Lucia which has a population of only 180,000 people. Levern Spencer is the only other athlete from the island to reach the top level. Aged just 14 she went to Jamaica where it was felt her talent would develop better. This was followed by study at the University of Texas before becoming pro.
Representing her country is always high in her thoughts. She spoke to me about leaving Paris “with two medals, the first Olympic medal for my country”. The realisation of what she had achieved came gradually: “There were several moments when that hit me and you would probably have seen me crying at those moments. That’s when I realised, like what had happened and how my life was about to change and just realizing it was a dream come true, when I crossed that line. And then when I got to the area when I got my clothes back and realising that I had literally just won the Olympics, the 100 meters. But too that my dad is not here to see it. [He had died when she was young]. So every time you saw me getting emotional was a moment that I realised like: ‘wow, I’m really the champion’”.
From 4th and 5th in the World Championships in 2023 to 1st and 2nd in Paris, I asked her what had made the difference: “Just hard work, to be honest”. She added that many people don’t understand how demanding the collegiate season is. As a professional she can focus on preparing for the Olympics or the World Championship; as a collegiate athlete she reckons she had run over 50 races prior to the 2023 World Championships.
I assumed that winning the 2024 World Indoors would have been a confirmation that he was on track for Paris. She told me it had almost worked in reverse “it actually caused me to be much harder on myself. I had a lot of doubts. I was putting so much pressure on myself whenever I stepped up to the line after that. Some may think that it would have caused me to be more confident, but it definitely did not. It just allowed me to be harder on myself, made me feel like every time I stepped to the line now I had to put on a show”.
She gives a lot of credit to Coach Flo (Edrick Floréal) in Texas: “He’s like a father figure, a coach obviously, and a mentor to us. He just always ensures that he’s the best person, he can be for us, to ensure that we can go on the track and deliver – for ourselves, for our family and ensuring that our goals always align with what he has planned for us. He’s just an amazing person.
I wondered if she saw herself as better at 100 or 200. She gave me a very thoughtful answer: “That’s a good question. My coach thinks I’m a good 200 meter runner but I would say the 100. I’ve been working on the 200 this year, trying to change my mentality towards it. I just love running the 100 more than the 200. I mean everybody has a favorite and mine is the 100. I know when I was in college, I always said I do not like the 200, but that has changed a lot. I do enjoy it now and am learning how to run it and learning to trust my strength more now because I do have a lot more strength. However, I would say that the 100 is just an event that I truly love. And I don’t know if that will ever change.
Her social media includes phrases like “I’m humbled and grateful for God’s grace and mercy’”. She explained: “Something that I always do is glorify God. He’s the one who blessed me with this talent. He’s the one who brought me to this fine life and I think that just praying to him and just giving him praise every single day for just allowing me to finish healthy because it’s important to remember that God gives us those gifts so we can glorify him in ways”.
Her ambitions going forward are simple: “I want to give the next few years the best shot that I possibly can, to achieve all that I can at a very young age. And when I leave the sport to have absolutely no regrets”.
She will start by leaving Tokyo with no regrets and probably a medal or two.
