Julien Alfred’s effect on her people and homeland is simply phenomenal and unprecedented, as no other Saint Lucian has so-united her fellow citizens across all barriers – political, social, economic, religious, gender or class.
From her arrival at Hewanorra International Airport on September 24 to the national concert of appreciation at the Darren Sammy Ground in Gros Islet on September 27, Saint Lucians of all walks of life came out wave their nation’s flag and honour the greatest contributor to the biggest-ever manifestation of national pride since independence.
Not even Independence Day in 1979 was anywhere near, the day seeing the new nation born in deeper division than under colonialism; and certainly not the returns home of Sir Arthur Lewis and Hon. Derek Walcott, after winning their respective Nobel Prizes for Economics and Literature, in 1979 and 1992, respectively.
Daren Sammy drew national pride every time he led Saint Lucia or the West Indies cricket teams to series victories, but he never got a homecoming as big as Alfred’s – and nor did Levern Spencer and Janelle Scheper, who represented Saint Lucia in the high-jump finals at the 2008 Olympic Games in China.
Rick Wayne was the first local athlete to grace the world’s biggest sporting stages as a world-class bodybuilder who won almost all the top titles (Mr World and Mr Universe included), but the island was still a British colony back then (1960s) and Wayne, though born in Saint Lucia) was resident between the UK and USA.
Alfred returned home with more than just the two Olympic 100m and 200m medals, having also won two Diamond League Gold and Silvers in the 100m and 200m races, as well as the Indoor 60m record won in the USA – and with all that the fame before fortune that followed her career at the University of Texas and other global athletic success.
Saint Lucians have dug-deep to exhale the glowing tributes still being paid to the first Saint Lucian to make them proud like she’s done in this age, establishing herself as the fastest woman in the world – a big gift in a small package that all have appreciated everywhere.
Parents ensured their children lived the history of the moment, as seen at the September 27 concert, while the private sector and national entities, including the Saint Lucia Olympic Committee (SLOC), also poured out their appreciation in dollar terms – and the government awarded and rewarded accordingly.
From the government, on behalf of the people, Alfred has received one million dollars, 10,000+ square feet of land at a location of her choice to build a home and is designated an Ambassador for Tourism, while the Millennium Highway will be renamed after her and a monument in her honour will be erected at Cul-de-Sac.
The government, 1st National Bank and SLOC, among others, not only rewarded her with cash awards, but also took the significant step of also donating to the future of her first local coach and the training club that produced her: he getting a home and the club getting annual grants for continuity.
Another effect of Alfred’s victories is the way regional banks are reminding Caribbean governments that Sports Tourism has more potential now than ever, while sports ministers are repeating promises to do more and better, to build world-class athletes and give more attention and recognition to the importance of seeing and treating sports and games as serious as politics and elections.
Saint Lucia and Saint Lucians of all ages the-world-over are overly glad to be alive today and will readily forever claim to have been ‘born at the right time’, to have taken ‘selfies’ with the global star at home and/or to share with the world the mass publicity the athlete and her home nation got after she won the Women’s 100m at the Paris Olympics on August 3.
On that day, the internet search engines registered one million searches for Saint Lucia within ten minutes – and millions more thereafter, especially after each international race she’s won since Paris.
Noticeably, Saint Lucia’s most-humble national hero has maintained her grace and humility, her humble poise ever-present at every one of the nearly-too-many official activities she attended before boarding that return flight to Texas last weekend.
The Saint Lucia government’s awarding rewarding of its Olympic winner was the last in a series of such national honours also paid by Caribbean governments to their winning athletes from Jamaica, Dominica and Grenada, each honouring their winners to their best ability, while the University of the West Indies (The UWI) honoured Grenada’s Kirani James with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters for his successive wins in more than one Olympic Games outings.
Dominica, Grenada and Saint Lucia flew the flags of the smaller eastern Caribbean (OECS) islands higher-than-ever in Paris this year, unleashing a level of Caribbean pride earlier shown mainly for Jamaica’s successive international winners, from Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce to Usain Bolt.
The world’s top sports media houses descended on Saint Lucia for Julien Alfred’s return home sportswriters, while undecided on whether the 23-year-old Saint Lucian speedster is faster than her 24-year-old American track-and-field colleague Sha’Carri Richardson, they see the former as the next brightest star on the global Olympic horizon.
Alfred has proven – more than once – that she can beat Richardson; and Fraser-Pryce’s controversial ‘absence’ from the Paris 100m was seen by many as a tactical move to protect her ‘unbeaten’ record.
But whether the analysts or pundits are right or wrong about their claims, there’s no doubt in any of their minds that Alfred is the new kid to fear on the global athletics bloc.
Meanwhile, everyone agrees her earnings have been well-earned, but Julien can also now count on earning even-more, as the Diamond League has announced it will increase winning payments by 40% as of 2025 – meaning, more races to win and bigger stakes to rake-in!