A changing of the guard in women's sprints doesn't mean a redrawing of the map.
That 100m Olympic gold medal is heading back to Jamaica, only this time in the hands of Elaine Thompson, the 24-year-old who took down America's best, to say nothing of her training partner, two-time defending champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce.
Thompson turned what was supposed to be one of the most competitive races on the Olympic programme into a runaway. Level at the halfway mark with Fraser-Pryce and Tori Bowie of the United States, Thompson pulled away over the second 50m and defeated Bowie with a hefty slice of daylight between the pair.
Thompson finished in 10.71sec, a full 0.12sec better than Bowie and only 0.01sec off the time she ran at Jamaica's national championships last month. Thompson's 10.70 in her homeland was the best of five sub 10.80 women's sprints this year and certainly served notice that things could be changing once the sprinters reached Rio.
Three of those sub 10.80 women were in the final - Bowie and another American, English Gardner, were the others - as was Fraser-Pryce, the 29-year-old who was a brace-faced newcomer when she won her first of two Olympic 100m golds at the Bird's Nest in Beijing eight years ago.
She was trying to become the first person to win three straight 100m titles at the Games. It would've given her one day's worth of bragging rights over Usain Bolt, who has overshadowed her in almost everything despite their dual dominance. Bolt will try to do it on his own in the men's race on Sunday.
Fraser-Pryce led the women's final early, but faded, and was forced to settle for a bronze medal to go with the green and yellow Jamaican-flag hairdo she first sported for her turn as her country's flag-bearer at the opening ceremony.
And now, there's a new champion from the island country that seems to grow them on trees.
Thompson was a late bloomer. She didn't make her high school track team and, until she finished second in the 200m at last year's world championships, had barely made a splash on the international scene, tucked behind Fraser-Pryce and the country's seven-time Olympic medalist, Veronica Campbell-Brown, among others.
Thompson's win over Fraser-Pryce at the national championships caused a stir, before both runners were forced out of action - Fraser-Pryce with a toe injury and Thompson with a strained hamstring.
She looked no worse for wear over three heats in Rio. In the final, she got stronger as she approached the line and left what had been billed as an uber-competitive field in her wake.
Surprise finalist Marie-Josee Ta Lou of Ivory Coast finished fourth, followed by Dafne Schippers, the Dutch heptathlete-turned-sprinter. Gardner, the champion at U.S. Olympic Trials last month, was two more spots back.
'They are not unbeatable,' Gardner insisted, when asked about the Jamaicans' unending dominance in these races.
When the lights are brightest, though, they really are.
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