"Don’t let a little bit of rain stop you"- Melissa Jefferson on her mindset before clinching 100m bronze at Paris Olympics 2024

By Soumik Bhattacharya

Modified Aug 24, 2024 16:12 GMT

Melissa Jefferson recently shared the experience she had while competing at the Olympic Games for the first time in her career. The 23-year-old won two medals in Paris: bronze in the 100m and gold in the women's 4x100m relay.

Jefferson, talking to WBTW.com looked back at her 2024 Paris Olympics journey and opened up about how content she is after clinching two medals. She also remarked how the heavy rain during the women's 100m final affected her.

Here is Jefferson's complete statement from the interview:

"Girl, you really went to your first Olympic games and came back with two medals. That is rare, not a lot of people in this lifetime can say that they did that."

"We were about to start warming up again and it actually started raining. I was like ‘wow, really, seriously,’ but then that just kind of went out the window because at that point it was like ‘okay it’s not only raining for me, it’s raining for everyone’. You worked your butt off right now for this moment, so don’t let a little bit of rain stop you from achieving what it is you really want to achieve," she added.

During the interview, Jefferson also spoke about the chilling environment she faced while competing in the women's 100m final as more than 70,000 fans attended the event at Stade de France. However, this crowd pressure didn't affect Jefferson, and she ended her first Olympic campaign on a successful note.

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A look at Melissa Jefferson's performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics

Melissa Jefferson at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris (Image via Getty Images)

Competing in the women's 100m, Melissa Jefferson clinched the bronze medal with a time of 10.92 seconds. The South Carolina native finished just behind Julien Alfred and her American counterpart Sha'Carri Richardson, who won the gold and silver medal respectively.

This was also Jefferson's first-ever individual medal in international tournaments. The 23-year-old backed this solid performance with another successful outing during the Women's 4x100m relay, where the US team clinched the gold medal.

In the final, Melissa Jefferson ran the first leg for the United States and gave her team a good start to the proceedings. She took 11.46 seconds to complete her run and obtained a leg rank of 3. Her teammate, Sha'Carri Richardson, ran superbly in the anchor leg to see the quartet through to the finishing line in first place.