Doha (AFP)

The Jamaican Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, less media-friendly than her compatriot Usain Bolt, has built an extraordinary track record while leading a life of fighting, first against poverty, then in favor of his island.

Double Olympic champion and now four times world champion in the 100m, it is not his trophies or his hair with flashy braids (sometimes green, pink, golden ...) but its size, modest (1.60 m), which best reflects his deep personality.

Discreet and humble, she devotes time to charity, being an ambassador for UNICEF, where she has been campaigning in recent months for better conditions for deliveries in Jamaica, or for better information on breastfeeding. . Especially since this young mother has a degree from the University of Technology in Child Development and Adolescence.

Only downside: the eight-time world champion (four times in 100m, once in 200m, three times in 4x100m) was suspended six months for doping with oxycodone (opioid) in 2010.

In everyday life, without fuss + and noiselessly, the sprinter lends her name to causes that seem noble.

"Shelly is one of those people behind the scenes," his pastor in Jamaica, father Winston Jackson, told the Jamaican daily The Gleaner in 2012.

"If she decides to help someone, she will do it privately, she does not like all this excitement."

- violent ghetto -

Her work with children takes root where she grew up in Waterhouse, a ghetto in Kingston where violence reigns, one of her cousins ​​was a victim. But Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce refused to give up, and accept her fate.

His iron mind no doubt comes from his mother Maxine - who raised her alone with her two brothers - with this phrase in mind: "You have talent, go and use it".

"I love my community, coming from here, even though it's hard sometimes to see young people I grew up with not getting out," she explains at The Undefeated.

"I think being part of this community gives hope to others, I want young people in my neighborhood to know that anything is possible."

If money was not a daily problem in the Fraser home, the family was not always hungry when Maxine had a bad day in her job as a street vendor.

"She was strict with us, and worked hard as a street vendor to be sure she could send us to school," she told the Daily Telegraph in 2009.

"It was hard for her, sometimes we did not have enough to eat, I went to school with no money for the meal and my school had to give it to me My mother would never let me out. Back from school, the male gangs were talking to us but I kept going, never answering and then my mother was going to see them to tell them to leave and leave me alone. "

- Mom for two years -

With this example, and married to her long-time boyfriend Jason Pryce, Shelly-Ann gives birth to her son Zyon on August 7, 2017, and gives himself a new fight: to prove that it is possible to return to the highest level after pregnancy.

"The motivation is stronger than before It's hard for girls Girls are so scared to start our family, people think we can never come back after pregnancy", she explained in Lausanne in July.

"Successful feedback was important to show to myself and others that it was possible to push back barriers." One more.

© 2019 AFP