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Ivorian track legend Marie Josee Ta Lou-Smith was one of the biggest winners at the lucrative ATHLOS women-only track meet in New York.
Africa's fastest woman in history Marie Josee Ta Lou-Smith ended her rollercoaster 2024 season in style by being over $60,000 richer after taking the women's 100m victory at the inaugural ATHLOS meet in New York.
ATHLOS is a women-only track meet offering the largest-ever purse for a women-only competition across all races and sponsored by Alexis Ohanian- founder of Reddit and husband to tennis legend Serena Williams.
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In the women's 100m event, Ta Lou-Smith blazed to the finish line in an impressive time of 10.98s, shrugging off a late challenge from in-form American bronze medallist Brittany Brown, who settled for the second position in a Season's Best of 11.05s, while Candace Hill was third in 11.14s.
For winning the event, the Ivorian track legend pocketed a huge sum of $60,000 as the winning prize, in addition to getting a worthy crown worth $25,000.
Her brilliant victory and price win served as a perfect end to a rollercoaster 2024 season that saw her overcome several challenges, which included being wheeled off in the Olympic final after sustaining an injury midway through the race, thus abruptly ending her dream of winning her first medal in her last Olympic Games.
Consequently, Ta Lou-Smith struggled with getting a major win in most of her competitions this season, which she'll speak about in her post-race speech at the ATHLOS meet.
“This is the most I have ever made in one race…I have to do six Diamond League to win that one but here it’s only one race. You know, the crown,” said the African Record holder.
“I feel like this is really great for the new generation coming and I’m grateful to be at this first meeting and I hope we can make an impact for another meeting. This is what we want to have…we want to have everything that will make us feel grateful and important and make money for our families.”
Ta Lou-Smith also gave insights on what it took to regain her momentum following her heartbreaking Paris outing and emotional season.
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18:40 - 25.09.2024
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"I was like, ‘I want to retire’ but hey, next year will be greater than this year so maybe this is motivation again. The extra amount of money will help in training and logistics and coming from Africa, I have my family that depends on me and I have to take of them and myself, so this is great,” she said.
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