St. Lucia’s maiden Olympic medalist Julien Alfred wanted to be like Usain Bolt since she was in grade six. Therefore on the morning of the Olympic 100m final, she went back to her idol. She watched a couple of Bolt’s winning moments and visualized herself in that position. Despite that, she has a remarkably different demeanor from Bolt, and even from her arch-rival Sha’Carri Richardson. In contrast to Bolt or Sha’Carri’s extrovert nature, Alfred is calmer and reserved. So, how does that impact her ties with her fellow competitors?

Just two weeks back, talking to Sky’s Jacquie Beltrao, Alfred said, “What people see on the track, such as us being rivals, outside of the track, people can be very nice as well. Whenever I see my competitors, I do say hi to them. On Instagram, if somebody posts a picture, I’ll respond to them—same vice versa. Um, we’ll have a quick chat in our DMs as well. Sha’Carri, she’s a very sweet person to me, and so I don’t have any issues with her.” But wait, the warmth is thus far, and no further. Alfred says when on the tracks, she is all alone- cold and silent.

During an interview with The Telegraph, Alfred revealed the competitiveness, stating, “It’s almost like an alter ego. Sometimes I can be just regular, having a little chit-chat like we are now, or a little laugh with somebody and just talking so calmly. But when I’m on the track, I don’t talk. I don’t have any friends.“ These conflicting emotions that come to an athlete are very common. During races, these sprinters are filled up with adrenaline and always keep the win as their utmost priority.

All of these emotions and hormones running through their body and brain make them really competitive and turn into a whole new person on track. Surely, whenever she is out of the track, Alfred claims to become that friendly person who likes to have funny interactions among her peers or even just with anyone she meets. “I don’t care who you are or how good our friendship is outside of track and field; it’s just a whole different mindset, and I’m just hungry,” the 100-meter Olympic champion added. Not only this, when it comes to social media, she has a different perspective than most of her rivals.

Alfred said she was “not too fond of social media”. Not to miss that her number of followers has grown from a modest 30,000 before the Olympics to 154,000 ahead of Netflix’s Sprint 2. Interestingly, although she features in the second series of the documentary, Alfred is not sure whether she will at all watch it. “I’m not the type of person to listen to myself, when I’m on TV or YouTube, because hearing my voice makes me cringe. A lot,” she said. Probably, her nature has something to do with what she had to go through on way to this triumph.

Alfred changed bases twice, and that too before turning 18. At 14, Alfred left friends and family behind to polish her skills in Jamaica. She can not stop recalling how hard it was to take that step, saying: “First of all just not being with any family. That was something I had to adapt to. I don’t think I fully adapted to being away from my family for the three years that I spent there.” But that was not the only thing that shook her.

“The culture difference, the language, the environment of what sport was like, what sprinting was like and what track and field in general was like in St Lucia, compared to Jamaica, is completely different,” Alfred noted. Yet, it was that very environment that she wanted. “We hear about Elaine [Thompson-Herah], we hear about Shelly [-Ann Fraser-Pryce], we hear about Usain Bolt, so I think that was one of the reasons why I wanted to go to that environment, knowing that greats have come out of it,” she said. 3 years later, there came one more episode of change.

This time it was even farther from her homeland, all the way to Texas to train under Edrick Floréal, a two-time Olympian from Canada. In Floreal, she found a father figure. As someone who lost her father at 12, Alfred said, “He’s somebody I felt was just meant to be part of my journey.” She credits the coach for helping her turn the pressure of an entire country’s expectations into motivation. After she lived up to it, she burst into different kinds of emotions that she wasn’t able to hold back on.

Julien Alfred recalls overflowing emotions

Julien Alfred came as an underdog in the 100-meter race in Paris. But she defied all odds at the Stade de France to claim what she had been wanting for a long time. As seen on Netflix’s Sprint Season 2, Episode 3, the Saint Lucian runner reflected on this heartwarming victory, stating, “All I’m thinking about right now is just that I have finally made it. All my hard work and all my sacrifices paid off. It’s almost like a relief just seeing how far I’ve come. A little girl from Saint Lucia is finally here.” 

Her country knew this. So the celebration was also out of bounds. Tell us what was not there. St. Lucia government announced September 27 as ‘Julien Alfred Day’. On that day, a crowd attended a free concert at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground, a stadium named after another famous sporting St Lucian. She received a million-dollar award from the government, as well as a 10,720-foot area of land, in line with her winning time in Paris (10.72 seconds). A section of the Millennium Highway has been renamed the Julien Alfred Highway.

“It was very overwhelming,” she said of the welcome she received when she came back to the island after her season ended in September. “I felt loved and supported by my fellow Saint Lucians. Definitely not what I expected, in the way that the love they poured into me. But overall it was really exciting — an amazing four days back on home soil and I really enjoyed the celebrations,” she had added. With all that, now she has a wish.

“I really hope we’re going to get a new stadium. I really am hoping we can have the youth of the country, have them believe they can get out of the ghetto, have them believe that even though they’re from a small place in the Caribbean, they can make it out,” Alfred had said. We get that. After all, who knows the pain of abandoning their family for training better than her?