PARIS – Ja­maican sprint star Sh­er­ic­ka Jack­son said pro­tect­ing her body was one of the rea­sons be­hind opt­ing out of the mar­quee women’s 100 me­tres at the Paris Olympics, stress­ing she was “at peace” with the de­ci­sion.

The 30-year-old, the reign­ing World 200 me­tres cham­pi­on, an­nounced Wednes­day she would not line up in the 100 me­tres – an event in which she took sil­ver at the last two World Cham­pi­onships in Bu­dapest and Ore­gon and bronze at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

“I think the de­ci­sion is just to pro­tect my body. For the last three years I’ve been com­pet­ing in both events …,” Jack­son said.

“I’m al­ways at peace. As I said, you have to make de­ci­sions that are best for your body, your mind and your soul. I’m ok with the de­ci­sion …”

Jack­son, who has nev­er won Olympic gold but is heav­i­ly favoured to do so in the 200 me­tres, said there were al­so oth­er fac­tors in­volved in her de­ci­sion to forego the straight sprint but opt­ed not to di­vulge them.

“It was a com­bi­na­tion of so much stuff that I per­son­al­ly don’t want to talk about,” she was quot­ed as say­ing.

“Some­times you have to go through a rocky road to get where you’re try­ing to go, and my rocky road has hap­pened to me.”

Jack­son, who will be re­placed in the 100 me­tres by Shashalee Forbes, has a run a sea­son-best of 10.84, the per­for­mance com­ing at the Ja­maica tri­als.

She is one of the head­lin­ers of the track and field com­po­nent of the Paris Games, along with fel­low coun­try­woman Shelly-Ann Fras­er-Pryce who will be com­pet­ing at age 37.

Reign­ing 100m World cham­pi­on, Amer­i­can Sha’Car­ri Richard­son, will join the Ja­maican duo in at­tempt­ing to steal the head­lines, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter her world-lead­ing 10.71 at the Unit­ed States tri­als.

CMC