Team USA sprinter Melissa Jefferson may have come into her own later than most of the Olympic track and field stars, but she’s been on a meteoric rise ever since. The 23-year-old from Georgetown, South Carolina, was competing in her Olympic debut and won the bronze medal in the 100-meter final on August 3, just two years after the race that made her famous.
Jefferson had a breakout year in 2022, winning the 60-meter dash at the NCAA National Championships and becoming the first Coastal Carolina alum to win an individual national championship. Within months, he burst onto the international athletics scene as part of the gold medal-winning 4×100-meter relay team at the 2022 World Athletics Championships. And this year, Jefferson… Led another team to a gold medal She won the same event at the IAAF World Championships and then, about two months later, placed second in the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, Oregon, earning a spot on the U.S. team with a personal best time of 10.80 seconds.
Jefferson is clearly making quantum leaps in the sport as fast as he is able to fly around the track, so if you blinked and missed it, read on to find out more about this rising star sprinter.
1. Jefferson donated stem cells to save his father’s life when he was a senior in high school.
When Jefferson was 17, her father was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, a disease that prevents the bone marrow from making enough new blood cells and can lead to leukemia (blood cancer) if left untreated. What her father needed was a blood stem cell transplant, and Jefferson’s blood was the best match out of all the relatives they tested. “They always made sure I knew I didn’t have to do this, but I was like, ‘I’m going to have a transplant because he’s my dad and I want him to be around for a long time,'” Jefferson said. WMBF News.
So Jefferson went through the process of donating stem cells in the fall of 2018, when he was a high school senior. First, he received injections over several days to boost the number of stem cells he had. Then, some of his blood was pumped in through one needle to extract the stem cells, and the rest was put back in through another. Ultimately, the transplant would repair his father’s bone marrow and save his life.
2. She turned professional as soon as she was in her third year of college.
Remember Jefferson’s breakout year in 2022 when she qualified for the World Athletics Championships? It was at the 2022 U.S. National Track and Field Championships where she was originally selected to be on the gold medal-winning relay team. Won the gold medal Jefferson won the 100 meters in a major upset. Though she never medaled in that individual event at the World Championships, her rapid (and unexpected) rise to U.S. champion status brought her to the attention of important people. She signed a pro contract with Nike and began competing at the professional level while continuing to train with her coach at Coastal Carolina.
3. She got engaged to her college sweetheart last fall.
Jefferson’s then-boyfriend of three years, former Coastal Carolina football player Rollan Wooden II, reportedly surprised her in October 2023 by proposing during a beach picnic. The Sun NewsThe couple had moved to Claremont, Florida, earlier that year, when Jefferson decided to join the professional track and field club Star Athletics, and one of her new training partners, Olympian Towanisha “TeeTee” Terry, played a key role in making the proposal happen. Runner SpaceTerry was the only person Wooden told about the plan and helped plan the surprise.
Depict the moment InstagramJefferson wrote: “Laurent, thank you for coming into my life. You make me the happiest person in the world and I can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives together.”
4. She plays a big mind game.
Jefferson has long had an intellectual and spiritual approach to athletics, writing out easy, medium and difficult goals for each season in college and reportedly “talking to God” before big races to stay focused on the present. The Sun NewsAhead of the 100m final at this year’s US Olympic Trials, she reflected on this season: told Flotrack“The biggest thing for me this year was just focusing on being myself, controlling what I can control and not worrying about what I can’t control.”
