Never has the sporting world followed a local sporting star’s development like Julien Alfred’s, noting her every victory from after the island’s 1st National Bank announced her as its global sports ambassador.
In 2022, the bank sponsored attendance by her mother and a lucky bank representative (selected by staff) at her high-profile graduation from the University of Texas.
Julien set early records for her school on the US Track and Field circuit and soon started participating in international meets in the USA and Canada, the UK and across Europe, in the process making and breaking world-class records.
After a year on the world’s biggest and best tracks, Julien started sending shivers up the spines of the Jamaican and American women’s Gold winners of previous Olympic 100m and 200m races, as she continued etching her name with new wins and/or records at international sporting events.
After she started increasing her wins and continued outclassing everyone else from everywhere, the world started sensing wholesome fear among those who felt Jamaica and the USA’s impressive possession of the most title-holders in the 100m and 200m was forever unchallengeable.
Julien won the World Indoor Women’s 60m race, which started the sprints to her 100m Olympic victory – and others between.
By the time the 2024 Olympics arrived in July, it was pellucidly clear that this brand-new Saint Lucian sprint star would brand her name in Paris – as she did, winning the 100m and placing second in the 200m sprints, to bring home Olympic Gold and Silver on her first outing.
The world beamed with pride and joy for Julien and Saint Lucia, the previously unknown young lady carving her name in Olympic history in Gold and Silver, making her country a household name globally with millions of online searches after she won the 100m race in Paris.
Every part of every country named ‘Saint Lucia’ – from Lake St. Lucia in South Africa to beachfront Santa Lucia in Cuba – was proud to have been put on people’s tongues and minds globally since Paris, thanks to Julien.
Her island home has been preparing for her glorious return for over a month and a special programme has been arranged for between September 24 and 27, which will include a motorcade from Vieux Fort’s Hewanorra Airport (in the island’s south) to Gros Islet (in the north).
It will also include several school visits, the unveiling of a monument in her Ciceron community in South Castries – and a holiday in her name.
But even before returning home, Julien has scored yet another global sporting feat, if only to re-establish her acknowledged dominance: winning the Diamond League 100m final in Brussels last week – in the process beating rival Sha’Carri Richardson into eighth place – and ending the arguments and doubts about who’s best.
Julien had earlier beaten one of Richardson’s records and the Jamaican sprinters failed to be present for the looked-forward-to Paris 100m match, during which Julien defeated the two other top US rivals.
The September 27 ‘Julien Alfred Day’ holiday in Saint Lucia will be celebrated at the Darren Sammy Grounds, named after Saint Lucia’s first international 21st Century sports hero, who made his homeland just as proud leading the West Indies Cricket team to World Cup victory and serving as Pakistan’s national cricket coach, among other impressive global cricket credentials.
Saint Lucia’s only other top-class world sports winner was Rick Wayne, who won Bodybuilding titles ranging from Mr World to Mr Universe while based in the UK and USA in the 1960s – before the island became independent in 1979.
Discussion continues here as to whether September 27 should be a permanent (national) holiday or a one-off celebration of her 2024 win(s), bringing home two Olympic Medals – plus the 2024 Diamond League Gold.
Unaware of how sporting records and achievements are measured on the global scale (as per points and numbers of wins, where and when), my simple arithmetic tells me Julien’s coming home next week with THREE international 2024 Track & Field medals: Paris Olympics Gold and Silver – and the Diamond League Gold from Brussels.
Again, from her first Olympic outing, these are impressive high marks for the Caribbean’s brand-new global sporting brand – a 23-year-old Saint Lucian who’s made every Caribbean person proud everywhere.
Believe it or not, Julien’s story is the stuff dreams and movies are made of: She lived her Olympic Dream; and before she could return home, she’d earned Saint Lucia a visit by Keisha Caine Bishop – the mother of Olympic 100m Men’s champion, Noah Lyles.
Caine-Bishop met Alfred – as the World Indoor Women’s 60m Champion and Olympic 100m gold medallist – at the 2023 NCAA Championships.
Herself a nine-time All-American athlete and a member of two 4×400 NCAA champion relay teams, Caine-Bishop fell for Alfred’s performances, which included winning the 100m and 200m titles at last year’s collegiate competition for the University of Texas.
Caine-Bishop promised Alfred back-then that she would visit Saint Lucia – and a little more than a year later, she did – and released a world-shared selfie video on a Saint Lucian beach, waving a large Saint Lucia flag, calling on people everywhere to visit the island by “adding Saint Lucia to your travel bucket list!”.
Yes, this is another Saint Lucian story that’s exactly the stuff movies are made of.
Hollywood’s movie minds already have eyes on the Botham Jean ‘Black Lives Matter’ story, and now the American mother of the American winner of the 2024 Olympic 100m Men’s race has visited the Caribbean island home of the 2024 Women’s 100m winner, scriptwriters may also be having itchy fingers for the rest of a story they’re already dreaming of.
But before all of that, the Caribbean cannot but be extra proud of this extraordinary young athlete who’s shown her capacity to win many more Golds between now and the next Olympics – and already inspiring others everywhere to follow her tracks and live their dreams!