“I was excited to see what healthy Melissa can do,” Melissa Jefferson-Wooden said calmly, but her words carried weight. They carried the weight of disappointment from last season. The weight of finishing fifth at the 2024 Prefontaine Classic in 11.02 seconds, while Sha’Carri Richardson blazed to victory in 10.83, and Julien Alfred followed in 10.93. The weight of standing third on the podium at the Paris Olympics, behind the very same Alfred and Richardson. So, Melissa did what champions do. She studied.
“I have looked at the Olympic race and I’ve looked at Pre Classic from last year, probably at least a hundred times for each race, separately,” Melissa Jefferson-Wooden admitted ahead of the 50th edition of the Prefontaine Classic. Then she added, almost with a sigh, “So you know and when I look at myself from last year, I look at a girl who… She had all the potential, she just did have the strength.” This season, strength is no longer the missing piece. And on Saturday, July 5, at Hayward Field, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden delivered the kind of performance that rewrites narratives.
In a field stacked with the biggest names in sprinting—including her Olympic rivals Sha’Carri Richardson and Julien Alfred—Melissa stunned the crowd. She surged ahead in the women’s 100m and stopped the clock at a world-leading 10.75 seconds into a stiff -1.5 m/s headwind. Julien Alfred chased her down with a 10.77 but came up short. And Sha’Carri? She faded to ninth place in 11.29 seconds—her most concerning result of the season.
Melissa Jefferson-Wooden beats Olympic champion Julien Alfred to win the Pre Classic 100m running 10.75 into a -1.5 headwind! #Pre50
Sha’Carri Richardson 9th in 11.19 pic.twitter.com/HfcIJY33qs
— Travis Miller (@travismillerx13) July 5, 2025
For Melissa, the win wasn’t just another line on the stat sheet. It was a statement. The kind you make after a year of rebuilding, rewatching, and refusing to stay quiet in the shadows. Meanwhile, social media was already ablaze. “Coleman and Sha’Carri need to hang it up,” one user bluntly posted on X. It wasn’t just about Saturday’s losses—it was about the pattern. Sha’Carri, after a lukewarm fourth-place finish at the Seiko Golden Grand Prix, had again fallen far behind. Her boyfriend, Christian Coleman, didn’t fare much better—losing badly in the men’s 100m earlier in the day to Kishane Thompson and placing seventh.
For fans, the Prefontaine Classic had become more than a meet—it was a crossroads. The new guard was rising, and the veterans? They were being outpaced, outshined, and, as some felt, out of time.
The report is developing…
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