CAS­TRIES, Saint Lu­cia – Reign­ing Olympic 100m cham­pi­on Julien Al­fred has been named by the Saint Lu­cia Ath­let­ics As­so­ci­a­tion (SLAA) to com­pete at next week’s World Ath­let­ics In­door Cham­pi­onships in Poland.

The 24-year-old will be seek­ing to re­claim the 60m ti­tle which she cap­tured in 2024, when she takes part at the March 20 to 22 Cham­pi­onships at the Ku­jawsko-Po­mors­ka Are­na in Toruń.

Al­fred, who is based in Texas, has the fastest time this year for the event of 6.99 sec­onds. She is the joint sec­ond-fastest woman of all time over the dis­tance and has run un­der sev­en sec­onds six times, more than any­one ex­cept world record hold­er, Iri­na Pri­val­o­va of Rus­sia.

In a press re­lease is­sued on Fri­day, the SLAA said the event was an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty for Al­fred to make her mark on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

“Al­fred con­tin­ues to be a source of im­mense na­tion­al pride, hav­ing el­e­vat­ed Saint Lu­cia’s pres­ence on the in­ter­na­tion­al ath­let­ics stage through her re­mark­able achieve­ments and con­sis­tent world-class per­for­mances.

“The World Ath­let­ics In­door Cham­pi­onships present an­oth­er valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ty for Saint Lu­cia to show­case its ath­let­ic tal­ent on the glob­al stage,” said SLAA pres­i­dent Do­ra Hen­ry.

“Julien con­tin­ues to serve as an in­spi­ra­tion to a new gen­er­a­tion of young ath­letes at home, and her par­tic­i­pa­tion at this lev­el re­flects the con­tin­ued growth and po­ten­tial of ath­let­ics in our coun­try. As an as­so­ci­a­tion, we re­main com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing our ath­letes and to pro­vid­ing them with the op­por­tu­ni­ties and re­sources nec­es­sary to com­pete and ex­cel at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el.”

Al­fred will take to the track on Sat­ur­day, March 21, with the open­ing rounds at 6:05 a.m. Caribbean time. The semi­fi­nals and fi­nals are at 3.14 pm and 4.20 pm, the same day.

CMC