Julien Alfred, fresh off a narrow 100m loss at the Prefontaine Classic, made a revelation that few saw coming.
In a candid, no-frills conversation, the Olympic champion opened up about her true feelings towards the events that have shaped her career.
“I just love running the 100m more than the 200m,” Alfred admitted.
The remark, shared casually ahead of a birthday dinner in Oslo, came as a quiet surprise. Not for its drama, but for its honesty. In a sport where athletes often guard their preferences for strategic reasons, Alfred laid hers bare. It wasn’t always this way.
“When I was in college, I always said I didn’t like the 200,” she told Athletics Weekly.
That perception shifted not through sudden inspiration, but through consistent coaching and personal growth.
“I enjoy it now. I am learning how to run it and learning to trust my strength more because I do have a lot more strength.”
Her recent 200m win in Zagreb, clocking 22.15 seconds into a headwind, showed progress, but Alfred admits the half-lap sprint still asks more of her.
“I don’t think I am a good bend runner,” she confessed.
Even after running relay first legs in college, she remains unconvinced about her technical skill on the curve.
“It just takes practice to become a good bend runner, I would hope, and that’s something that I’m working on now.”
In Eugene, Alfred’s runner-up finish was anything but a disappointment. Her 10.77 seconds into a headwind, barely edged by Melissa Jefferson-Wooden’s 10.75, reaffirmed her form in a season marked by steady evolution. While cameras turned to other storylines, Jefferson-Wooden’s big win, Sha’Carri Richardson’s comeback struggles, Alfred walked off without fanfare, focused on the bigger picture.
But behind this calm and composed sprinter is a deeper story of vulnerability and resilience. After claiming her indoor world title in March, Alfred confessed that success had started to suffocate her.
“I wasn’t motivated like before,” she told the BBC.
“It felt so much pressure whenever I got a chance to race.”
The expectations that came with victories, especially following her landmark Olympic gold for Saint Lucia, became overwhelming.
“I felt like I had to win every single time. I felt like I couldn’t do it,” she admitted.
Her coach, Edrick Floreal, sensing her struggle, offered space instead of solutions. Their eventual conversation was raw and emotional.
“We both cried on the phone,” Alfred recalled. It wasn’t tactics or training schedules that brought her back — it was a simple, searing question: “Are you ready to be an Olympic champion?”
Now at 24, Julien Alfred is not just Saint Lucia’s first Olympic champion, she’s a sprinter unafraid to acknowledge both her doubts and her ambitions.
Whether fine-tuning her 200m bend or reaffirming her love for the pure, straight-line dash of the 100m, she remains a work in progress.