"I'd love to be the first," Julien Alfred had said of the possibility of becoming the first Olympic medalist from the tiny Caribbean island of St. Lucia. On Saturday, she achieved that in style by winning the women's 100 meters on a rainy night in Paris in a blistering time of 10.72.
American Sha'Carri Richardson earned silver, with another American, Melissa Jefferson, taking bronze.
Getting to the top of the podium was not a smooth passage for Alfred, a devout Christian, whose victory came in front of 69,000 spectators, just 110,000 less than the population of St Lucia.