Shericka Jackson

Since 2008, Shericka Jackson has won gold medals in various age divisions in the CARIFTA Games as well as the CACAC Junior Championships. She qualified for the finals in the 200 m at the Youth Olympics and World Junior Championships in 2012 and placed third at the World Youth Championships in 2011. At the age of 21, she made great progress in the 400 m, first going under 51 seconds in June and then eventually sub-50 seconds in August in the year 2015.

Jackson shifted to the 100 and 200 meter sprints for the 2021 season under the direction of renowned coach Stephen Francis, setting personal records of 10.77 and 21.82 seconds in the Jamaica Olympic Trials in Kingston. With a faster personal best time of 10.76 seconds, she finished third in the 100 m at the Tokyo Olympics. She also captured gold and bronze in the 4 x 100 m and 4 x 400 m relays. For the second time in history, Jamaicans swept the medal stand in the event, with Elaine Thompson-Herah taking gold in 10.61 seconds and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce finishing second in 10.74 seconds.

Jackson slowed down before the finish line in the 200 meters, which prevented her from moving on to the next round of heats. In the 100 and 200 meters, she set personal records of under 10.8 secs and under 22 seconds, respectively, in that year. With a 400 m lifetime best time of less than 49.5 seconds, she became one of only a few women athletes to achieve such times in all three events in the same year.

Throughout the 2022 season, Jackson continued to shine in the shorter sprints, capturing three medals at the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon. She won the sprint double at the Jamaican trials with times of 10.77 in the 100 and 21.55 in the 200. Her 21.55-second time put her in third place in the all-time in history. Jackson earned the silver medal in the 100m and the gold medal in the 200m in a competition at the World Championships.

Jackson produced an impressive anchor split of 9.72 seconds in the 4×100 meter relay final, but she was unable to overtake American sprinter, Twanisha Terry. As a result, the Jamaican team won the silver medal in 41.18 seconds, the sixth-fastest time in the history of the event. She had previously scripted history with her timing of 21.45 seconds in the 200 m final as she became the fastest woman alive and second fastest woman of all time in the discipline.

Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce, her Jamaican team mates, are also her biggest rivals.

Jackson was born to parents Diana Llewellyn and Desmond Jackson on July 16, 1994 in Saint Ann, Jamaica. Shericka’s parents are no longer together. Her mother, Diane Christie, is married to Karl Christie. Furthermore, she gets along well with her stepfather. Ian Jackson is the name of her brother. Jackson and Candice McLeod, another Jamaican Olympian, are close friends. Together with Jackson, McLeod represented Jamaica in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and took home the bronze medal in the 4X400 m relay.