Under the bright floodlights of Budapest’s Gyula Zsivotzky National Athletics Centre, Saint Lucian sprint star Julien Alfred etched another groundbreaking entry into her country’s athletics history, securing a silver medal in the women’s 100-meter final at the 2025 World Athletics Ultimate Championship.
The 25-year-old reigning Olympic champion crossed the line in 10.74 seconds, finishing just behind American sprinter Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, the current world title holder, who claimed gold in a world-leading 10.62 seconds. 2023 world champion Sha’Carri Richardson, another American contender, rounded out the podium with a third-place finish of 10.76 seconds.
Alfred, lined up in lane five, positioned between Jefferson-Wooden (lane four) and Richardson (lane six), carried strong momentum into the final after clocking a blistering 10.73 seconds in the semifinal round. Cool 15-degree temperatures and a slight -0.2 m/s headwind set steady racing conditions for the final group. Among the three podium finishers, Alfred posted the fastest reaction time out of the blocks at 0.144 seconds, edging out Jefferson-Wooden’s 0.163 seconds and Richardson’s 0.173 seconds.
Jamaica’s Tina Clayton got out to an early lead in the opening stretch, but both Alfred and Jefferson-Wooden quickly found their rhythm in their drive phases, overtaking Clayton by the 40-meter mark and running neck-and-neck. By the midpoint of the race, Jefferson-Wooden pulled away to open an unassailable lead, while Alfred held off a late push from Richardson to keep her silver medal position by just two hundredths of a second.
In other final results, Jamaica’s Jonielle Smith crossed fourth, just one thousandth of a second ahead of compatriot Tina Clayton, with both sprinters recording an official time of 10.94 seconds. Patrizia Van Der Weken finished sixth in 11.06 seconds, followed by Lavanya Williams at 11.07 seconds and Amy Hunt at 11.09 seconds.
For her second-place finish, Alfred received a $75,000 payout from the championship’s record $10 million total prize purse, marking one of the largest single-race rewards of her professional career. The silver medal caps off a already transformative season for the Saint Lucian sprinter: she has already set new national records in both the 100m and 200m disciplines this year, and secured her third consecutive Wanda Diamond League title — her first ever at the 200m distance. With this historic silver, Alfred continues to raise the profile of Saint Lucian athletics on the global stage.