African female 100m record holder, Marie-Josee Ta Lou, has revealed that she cried alone in her room when she placed fourth in the 100m final at the last Championships in Budapest, Hungary. She said her target for now is a podium finish at the Paris 2024 Olympics Games.
“My calling in athletics is bigger than winning multiple medals,” Marie-Josee Ta Lou told BBC Sport Africa, reflecting on a season she called “great for me”.
There is a feeling that the fastest woman in Africa has given everything but fallen short of complete success during her decade-long love for the track.
The Ivorian star’s accomplishments transcend the continent. To put things into perspective, if the fastest female 100m athletes of all time were lined up in a race today, Ta Lou would automatically have a lane. She achieved an African record time of 10.72 seconds during the 2022 Monaco Diamond League, making her the sixth-fastest woman of all time.
However, this achievement alone has not been enough to push her to the highest level of the sport, where victories at the Athletics Championships and Olympic Games carry greater weight.
Ta Lou has just ended another athletics season in which she came agonisingly close to a podium finish at the Athletics Championships in Budapest in August.
“It really hurts and I still can’t say I am over it.
“I wanted to get a medal but finished fourth. I have been in a situation where I have been crying alone in my room.
“The support I received from fans across the world and my fellow competitors has been my saving grace,” says Ta Lou. Ta Lou is not new to being the athlete who almost makes it against the dominant Americans and Jamaicans.
The 2017 Championships remain her most successful season, winning silver in the tightly-contested 200m and the 100m, when she narrowly lost her grip on gold on the line to America’s Tori Bowie.
She has competed in four Olympic finals, finishing fourth in three and fifth in one. But it’s her fourth-placed finish in Budapest that sent Ta Lou’s head spinning.
“When I participated in the 2016 Rio Games, which were my first Olympics, I had hoped to make it to the final, and so finishing in fourth place was a great experience,” she says.
“Unfortunately, the 2020 Olympic Games turned out to be a disaster that I would rather forget. But out of all the disappointments, this year’s loss hurts the most. I had felt completely prepared mentally, physically, and emotionally, and everything was within my control. But despite my best efforts, it just didn’t happen.
“I was so crushed and even considered ending my season in Budapest. But my strong faith in God is what strengthened me to show up for a double shot at the Diamond League finals in Eugene.”
Understandably, Ta Lou’s hopes were at an all-time high going into Budapest following a sizzling 2023 season. She was unbeaten in 10 consecutive races, including Diamond League wins in Florence, Oslo, Lausanne, and London.
