In a stunning showcase of speed and power, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden lit up the National Stadium in Tokyo, surging to a magnificent win in the women’s 100-meter final at the 2025 World Championships. The American dynamo didn’t just claim the gold; she coronated herself the queen of the sport by smashing the championship record in an eye-popping 10.61 seconds. This display of strength plants Melissa Jefferson-Wooden fourth on the planet’s all-time list and equals the fastest mark ever run at a world meet, matching the Olympic record set by Elaine Thompson-Herah in the same venue in 2021.
The victory caps a flawless season for Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, who went undefeated from the first meet to the final. Her winning mark, a scorching personal best, demolished the old championship record and confirmed her emergence as the sport’s newest star. Every hundredth of a second in that race paid tribute to the countless hours of grueling practice, sacrifice, and unwavering concentration that turned an Olympic bronze medal from Paris last summer into the gleaming world title that she now wears.
A Race Dominated from the Start
As the starting gun went off, it felt like the final was already Melissa Jefferson-Wooden’s race to lose. Out of the blocks she rocketed, matching the break of Olympic champion Julien Alfred of St. Lucia. Still, only a few strides in, Jefferson-Wooden’s raw power kicked in, and she passed Alfred at the 30-meter mark, never looking back.
“It was not easy,” the almost breathless Melissa said in the post-race interview. The same rhythm and fire she’d used on the track still crackled in her voice. “It looks easy now, but there was a lot of work behind it—mental drills, movie-style visualization, and a million coach’s sprint sessions. The focus was on executing every little detail, and it clicked.”
She continued, “When I got ahead, it was a blur; I blacked out. My mind was a drumbeat, like a playlist on repeat: get to the line, get to the line, get to the line. Boom—finish line. I was looking back for the clock, thinking I may not have the ‘perfect race’ after all, and then I saw ‘10.61’ flash on the scoreboard. I just stood there, mouth open, thinking, ‘Oh my gosh I won, oh my gosh I ran 10.61!’”
Her winning margin of just 0.15 seconds is the second-largest ever recorded at the World Championships—hardly the usual margin in a race decided by blink-and-you-miss-it thousandths. Jamaica’s 21-year-old rising star Tina Clayton claimed a dazzling silver in a new personal record of 10.76. Bronze went to Alfred at 10.84, a gutsy performance marred by a hamstring tear that slowed her before the finish.
Historical Impact of the Race
Melissa Jefferson-Wooden’s run of 10.61 marks her place among the most exclusive in history. She is now behind only Florence Griffith-Joyner (10.49), Elaine Thompson-Herah (10.54), and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (10.60) on the all-time list. Jefferson-Wooden’s mark gives her the young discus that could one day spin an assault on the oldest standing mark in athletics.
When pressed on the idea of surpassing Flo-Jo’s 10.49, Jefferson-Wooden kept her options open. “That time is remarkable and represents the pinnacle,” she remarked, “but the door to the pursuit is not locked.”
The End of an Era and a New Beginning
The Tokyo 100-meter final closed the curtains on an entire era in track and field. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the five-time world champion and probably the greatest female sprinter of all time, sped to a 6th-place finish in 11.03. At 38, she crossed the line with the same trademark poise that once left rivals in her wake. The home crowd erupted in thunderous applause, a standing celebration that echoed throughout the stadium and felt like a proper valedictory address to a legend who now steps away from the spotlight.
In the same race, a new star was born. Melissa Jefferson-Wooden’s road to Tokyo was a hundred-meter-long odyssey of grit. At Coastal Carolina, coaches half-jokingly called her the “little road runner” because of her compact stride. When she turned pro, the clock wouldn’t tilt her way. Early 2023, she couldn’t dip under 11 seconds, and doubt hovered like a dark cloud. Yet a mantra learned from her mother, “delayed doesn’t mean denied,” flickered as her guiding light.
A transfer to Star Athletics, under the watchful eye of coach Dennis Mitchell alongside training partner Sha’Carri Richardson, turned the corner. In Trinidad last month, Melissa broke the barrier—an 10.76 that rewrote her story in real time. Tokyo, the stage, is now defined and signed by her.
Looking Ahead: The 200m and Beyond
With gold in the 100m already in the bag, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden is now gearing up for the 200m and is fierce about pulling off a sprint double. She clocked 21.84 already this season, ranking as the second-fastest time in the world for 2025. If she crosses the line first in the 200m, she will be only the second woman in the past 30 years to own both the 100m and 200m World Championship titles in the same year, the first being the legendary Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in 2013.
“I came in as a hunter,” Jefferson-Wooden says, fully aware that she now wears the bullseye. “This is the first time I’ve actually got a world and Olympic gold in the 100m, and I’ve been fighting for it this whole year. There will definitely be a target on my back next year, so I’ve got to learn how to navigate through that.”
The journey of Melissa Jefferson-Wooden is about much more than one finish line; it’s a story steeped in grit and love. Raised as a “village kid” in Georgetown, South Carolina, she traded ranks on the street for a flute in the high school band. Yet the beat of her future quickened in a hospital: at just a few months, she fought through major surgery. As a teenager, she harnessed that same fighting spirit again, becoming a stem-cell donor who literally gave her father a second chance.
Witnessing that, the whole community felt something rise in them, and they carried it with her. Today, Melissa’s name is cheered at stadiums and classrooms alike, and the world is holding its breath, eager to see how the new queen of women’s sprinting continues to break records and break barriers.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/09/14/sport/athletics-world-championships-melissa-jefferson-wooden-intl
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