It was at Tokyo in September last year that Melissa Jefferson-Wooden went from being the hunter to the hunted.
The 24-year-old American made history at the 2025 World Athletics Championships, becoming the first woman since Jamaican great Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, in 2013, to sweep the 100m, the 200m and the 4x100m relay. But ascending the throne as the reigning sprint queen comes at a price — uneasy lies the head that wears a triple crown.
Target on her back
Jefferson-Wooden now knows that over these next three years, she has a target on her back.
The inaugural edition of the Ultimate Championship in Budapest this September — an event which brings together World champions, Olympic champions, Diamond League winners and the year’s best performing athletes in an epic clash of titans — will be the first of her challenges. At the 2027 World Championships in Beijing, she will have to defend each of her three crowns. And then at Los Angeles 2028, her sights will be set on claiming Olympic gold at home.
“I would honestly prefer being the hunter,” Jefferson-Wooden told CNN, when asked about becoming the woman to beat at major competitions. “It’s going to be a new type of feeling being the hunted, but I think I’m up for the challenge. It will allow me to tap into another part of my mind I’ve not been in before. Finding ways to stay on top is going to be the biggest challenge, but it’s also going to be a fun challenge. 2025 is going to be hard to top. I set the bar really high.”
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But Jefferson-Wooden has two things going for her in her bid to build a case for being considered among the greatest ever.
Race for the throne: Jefferson-Wooden will face strong challengers to her 100m supremacy, including 2024 Olympic champion Julien Alfred.
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First, she has a proven record of setting incredibly ambitious goals and then surpassing them. She has come a long way from her first major final when she finished last at the 2022 Eugene Worlds and, with something akin to impostor syndrome, appeared delighted just to have lined up alongside some of her idols in the 100m. “That was a moment that definitely defined me, and then my drive ever since then has been shooting for the stars,” she said.
A bronze in the 100m and a sprint relay gold at the Paris Olympics helped validate that self-belief. A habitual goal-setter, she wrote down the times she wanted to achieve in 2025: 10.68s in the 100m and 21.9s in the 200m. Not only did she better both those marks, she obliterated them. In her favourite 100m, she ran 10.66, 10.65 and, most significantly, 10.61 at the Worlds, becoming the fourth-fastest woman in history.
Jefferson-Wooden’s performance in the 200m was just as impressive, given it was a more recent addition to her portfolio. Indeed, her coaches needed convincing when she told them at the start of 2025 that she wanted to take the event seriously. “They looked at me and it was like, ‘Wait a minute, did y’all hear what she said?’ But I told them I wanted to be a contender. I didn’t like to really focus on the extra 100 metres just because it hurts, but eventually I said to myself, ‘If you stop whining and complaining, you can actually be really good at this’.”
And she was very good at it, running a 21.84 before storming to the World title with a 21.68. In all, she was undefeated in 20 of 22 races last year. So she clearly can “shoot for the stars”.
Chasing Flo-Jo
The other factor in Jefferson-Wooden’s favour, as she plots world domination over the next three years, is that at least in one respect she still is the hunter, a position she relishes. Florence Griffith-Joyner’s much-questioned 10.49s from 1988 has been untouchable for decades, though Jamaican Elaine Thompson-Herah edged closer with her 10.54s in 2021. Jefferson-Wooden, very much on an upward curve, thinks she is capable of breaking Flo-Jo’s mark.
“Crazily enough, I thought [after running 10.61 at the Worlds] that I had the potential to run 10.5s, which is why I say that about the record,” she said. “The biggest thing for me if I want to break the world record, it’s not going to be chasing the time. It’s going to be doing very similar to what I did [in 2025], and that is just focusing on me, focusing on my execution, listening to my coaches, and then surrounding myself with people who are going to get me where I need to be.”
Mastering the bend: Jefferson-Wooden’s performance in the 200m last year was impressive, given it’s a more recent addition to her sprint portfolio.
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A switch in Jefferson-Wooden’s approach was central to her rise last year. She focused on competing against her best, not against others. This allowed her to “lock in” on what brought out her best under pressure, and prevented her from thinking about what others had that she potentially didn’t. “I feel like I’ve done a very good job of being disciplined in who I am and who I want to be as an athlete,” she said. “It’s just about keeping the main thing [as] the main thing, looking at the smaller parts of the race and fine-tuning those things and critiquing those.”
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Jefferson-Wooden, who grew up in Georgetown (South Carolina), which has a population of less than 9,000, and attended a smaller athletics programme, has refused to let adversity limit her ambition. Indeed, she has used her circumstances as fuel. World Athletics recently added to that fuel, overlooking her for the Athlete of the Year award despite her sensational 2025.
“Part of me was mad, then the other part of me is like I’ve been getting overlooked in my career for so long, now it’s just like I don’t want to say that I’m used to it, but in a sense it’s just kind of like, okay, cool, fine, whatever,” she told The Track and Field Network. “It kind of felt like a slap in the face… I guess I’ll try harder next time.”
Fierce competition
It’s not the sort of motivation she would have wanted, but given the fierce competition she will be up against in the major events, it’s an edge she can use. Over the next three years, culminating in LA28, she will be challenged by 2024 Olympic champion Julien Alfred, former World champion Sha’Carri Richardson, the very talented Clayton twins, Tia and Tina, and potential bolters who aren’t widely known just yet but can burst onto the scene.
Only the very best female sprinters have won a World title as well as an Olympic gold, and Jefferson-Wooden has the opportunity to do so on home soil. “I already hold myself to a really high standard and expectations, so the pressures of the outside world, I really don’t feel them,” she said. “I try to make sure I go out there and focus on Melissa, focus on what I can do and run my races to the best of my ability. I’m excited for LA, I think it’s going to be one for the books.”
