Julien Alfred, Sha’Carri Richardson, Shericka Jackson and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden sprint at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum; Three-way USA-Jamaica-Saint Lucia title race

LA28 sprint showdown: Julien Alfred, Sha’Carri Richardson, Shericka Jackson and Melissa Jefferson-Wooden set the pace

The LA28 athletics programme begins with the women’s 100m on Day 1. Discover the stars in contention for gold with two years to go until the Games in Los Angeles.

Twenty-three women’s athletics events will be contested at the LA28 Olympic Games , but few are likely to generate more excitement than the sprints.

Fans won’t have to wait long to see their favourite stars in action, with all rounds of the women’s 100m, including the final, taking place on Day 1 of the Games (Saturday 15 July), and the 200m final a week later on 22 July.

With the traditional powerhouses the USA and Jamaica continuing to produce world-class sprinting talent, the emergence of Saint Lucia’s Paris 2024 100m champion Julien Alfred in recent years has added a third rivalry into the mix.

The USA will be led by the likes of Sha’Carri Richardson , who has proven herself to be one of the fiercest competitors on the starting line.

However, the rise of her training partner Melissa Jefferson-Wooden , who completed the 100m

200m double at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, has given the red, white and blue a new favourite for glory in two years’ time at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

After winning Olympic 100m gold at every Games from Beijing 2008 to Tokyo 2020 , Jamaica will no longer be able to rely on the talents of the legendary Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce following her retirement in 2025. The Caribbean island does, however, continue to produce some of the fastest track stars on the planet, including the second-fastest women’s 200m runner of all time, Shericka Jackson .

Will Alfred retain her Olympic title, or will someone else take the throne? Olympics.com looks at the women’s sprinters leading the charge for gold at LA28 below.

With a 100m personal best of 10.72 seconds and a 200m best of 21.51, Alfred sits 10th and third, respectively, on the all-time lists of fastest runners in those events.

The Saint Lucian will be 27 when the LA28 athletics events take place, an age when many sprinters are in their prime.

At Paris 2024, she became the first-ever Olympic medal winner from her nation when she stormed to gold in the 100m in France’s capital. She followed it up with silver in the 200m behind the USA’s Gabby Thomas to become a two-time medal winner at the Games.

Having burst onto the international scene with silver at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Alfred has proven herself to be a formidable performer in finals, including being crowned Diamond League champion in the 100m in both 2024 and 2025.

If bronze in the Olympic 100m final in Paris was a sign of Jefferson-Wooden’s growing talent, 2025 saw her reach another level.

Her 10.61-second gold-winning run in the 100m final of the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo placed her fourth on the all-time list in the event. She followed it up with a second individual world title, claiming the 200m crown in 21.68.

Jefferson-Wooden already has one Olympic gold medal to her name, as part of the winning 4x100m relay team at Paris 2024.

Like Alfred, Jefferson-Wooden will be 27 at LA28, and if her form continues, she will surely be among the favourites for gold at her home Olympics.

It wasn’t long ago that Jackson was seen as the most likely contender to break Florence Griffith-Joyner ’s longstanding 200m world record. In 2023, she came closer than anyone to doing so, winning the world championship final in Budapest in a sensational time of 21.41, just 0.07 seconds slower than Flo-Jo’s mark from 1988.

Jackson is also no slouch in the 100m, with her fastest time of 10.65 placing her joint-seventh on the all-time list.

The past two years have proven to be challenging for the 32-year-old, with injury forcing her out of Paris 2024, while she narrowly missed out on the medals with a fourth-place finish in the 100m at the Worlds.

If she can return to top form, few would count the Tokyo 2020 100m bronze medallist out of contention when it comes to the podium spots in Los Angeles.

One of the fastest athletes on the track - and most popular off it - Richardson burst onto the scene in 2019 with a 10.75-second 100m run at the NCAA outdoor championships. While her victory that day broke the collegiate record and established her as one of the 10 fastest in history, Richardson has since gone on to reach seventh on the list with a best time of 10.65.

Her victory in the 100m final of the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest was followed by 100m silver at Paris 2024 and gold in the 4x100m relay.

While injury disrupted a 2025 season in which she finished fifth in the world championships 100m final, this year she has returned to some of her best form, with a time of 10.77 placing her second on the 2026 world list at the time of writing (10 August).

A training partner of Jefferson-Wooden, the 26-year-old Richardson will be aiming for gold at her home Games in Los Angeles, with the competition for the top spot on the podium likely to be one of the most close-fought in Olympic history.

Gabby Thomas won 200m gold at Paris 2024 Michael Steele

Who else could claim Olympic sprint gold at LA28?

Almost exactly two years ago, Gabby Thomas sent the Stade de France crowd into a frenzy with her gold-winning run in the 200m final of Paris 2024. An Achilles injury scuppered her chances of competing at last year’s Tokyo Worlds, but the 29-year-old Harvard graduate could well be in the mix for medals when it comes to LA28.

Another star who has been enjoying a resurgence this year is Elaine Thompson-Herah . The 34-year-old, who won the 100m and 200m titles at Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, has produced a season’s best of 10.91 in the shorter sprint event in June of this year.

But while past champions will aim to reclaim their crowns, the next generation of women’s sprinters is brimming with potential.

From Jamaica’s rapid 18-year-old Shanoya Douglas to the USA’s World U20 100m and 200m champion Mia Maxwell , there are plenty of new stars to keep an eye on in the lead-up to LA28.

14 - 30 July 2028

LA 2028 | Olympic Games | USA