Hammock Coast athlete Melissa Jefferson wins Gold and Bronze at the 2024 Olympics in Paris

Hammock Coast athlete Melissa Jefferson wins Gold and Bronze at the 2024 Olympics in Paris

Melissa Jefferson, a star athlete who grew up in Georgetown County and South Carolina’s Hammock Coast, has made her Olympics debut in grand style and is coming home with both Bronze and Gold medals!

In the Olympics held in Paris, Jefferson took first-place – and the Gold medal – on Aug. 8 with Team USA for the women’s 4x100m relay. Jefferson was the lead runner in the four-woman team that also included Sha’Carri Richardson, Twanisha “TeeTee” Terry and Gabby Thomas. The team combined for a 41.94-second run to take the Gold medal.

The team relay came five days after Jefferson won her first Olympic medal.

On Aug. 3, she came in first in the Semifinals 1 for the 100-meter with an extraordinary run, clocking in at 10.99. Then, in the finals just a couple of hours later, she came in third to take the Bronze medal.

Jefferson’s final time was 10.92 – that was .07 better than her semi-final time.

The Silver Medal went to USA co-athlete Sha’Carri Richardson, and the Gold went to Julien Alfred of St. Lucia, that country’s first Olympic medalist.

A star track and field athlete from her days at Carvers Bay Early College and Career High School in Georgetown County and at Coastal Carolina University in nearby Conway, Jefferson, now 23 years old, has been setting records her whole life. The daughter of Johanna and Melvin Jefferson of Georgetown qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games on June 22 with a second-place finish in the Olympic Trials women’s 100-meter final with a time of 10.80.

Her chance at an earning an Olympic medal has been on the horizon for some time.

On Friday, Aug. 2, Jefferson earned a place in the semifinals in the women’s 100 meters in France at the 2024 Olympic Games.

Jefferson’s Olympic debut saw her finish in second place with a time of 10.96 seconds in the third heat of the competition’s first round at Stade de France.

Before she made her way to the Olympics, Jefferson posted her two fastest times while competing in the 2022 USA Outdoor Track and Field, winning her semifinal heat by .12 seconds with a time of 10.87 before setting a new personal best in the final 100 meters event.

As a CCU sprinter, she was named the 2021-22 Sun Belt Conference Female Athlete of the Year on Oct. 27, 2022. A Sun Belt Athlete of the Year award is the highest individual honor bestowed by the Conference, based on athletic performance, academic success, outstanding leadership, and character.

In March 2022, Jefferson became Coastal Carolina University’s first-ever individual national champion when she ran the 60-meter dash faster than anyone else (7.09) at the 2022 NCAA Division I Indoor Track and Field Championships, according to a story in the CCU Magazine Teal & Bronze. That was followed in June 2022 with a 100-meter dash in 10.69 – swift enough to win that national championship at the 2022 Toyota USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships and earning her a spot on the USA National Team to represent the United States at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in July.

There she made her professional debut and qualified for the semifinals with a time of 11.03 (second) and then the finals with a time of 10.92 (third). In the finals, she crossed the finish line eighth (11.03), running alongside Olympians Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson-Herah. Jefferson turned in another all-star performance as a member of Team USA’s women’s 4×100-meter relay gold medal team. Running the first leg of the race, she and her teammates recorded a time of 41.14 to become world champions.
 
Jefferson is the second student-athlete in the history of Coastal Carolina to be named Sun Belt Athlete of the Year, as former Chanticleer volleyball player Leah Hardeman was the 2017-18 SBC Female Athlete of the Year.
 
Jefferson won a Gold Medal and was crowned a 2022 World Champion as part of Team USA’s women’s 4×100-meter relay team at the 2022 World Athletics Championships in July 2022. She also crossed the finish line with a time of 11.03 (0.8) in the women’s 100-meter finals to place eighth overall at the 2022 World Athletics Championships.
 
She was also crowned the U.S. Track & Field National Champion in the women’s 100-meters at the 2022 Toyota USA Track Outdoor Championships, crossing the finish line first with an amazing time of 10.69 (+2.9) in the finals to earn the Gold Medal.
 
In 2021-22, Jefferson was a two-time USTFCCCA first-team All-American and first-team All-Sun Belt Conference performer, earning the honors in both the indoor and outdoor seasons. She was named the 2022 Sun Belt Conference’s Most Outstanding Track Performer during the indoor and outdoor seasons. Jefferson set the Coastal Carolina school record in the 60-meters indoors (7.09) and in both the 100-meters (10.88) and 200-meters (22.46) outdoors. She was also part of the school’s record-breaking 4×100-meter relay team (43.23).

For a look at her many CCU honors, click here.

While Jefferson has earned plenty of accolades for her obvious athleticism, she’s also earned attention for donating bone marrow when she was only 17 years old for her father who had been diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome, a disorder that can result in leukemia. As a match to donate stem cells, Melissa Jefferson donated the bone marrow in September 2018. That life-saving event has been chronicled by the Associated Press, the Teal and Bronze, the Post and Courier, The Georgetown Times and other media outlets.

“I knew (the preferred match) was going to be me,” Melissa Jefferson told the Teal & Bronze, “because that’s how God works. And I knew I was going to do it because he’s my dad and I love him, and I want him here a long time.” You can read the entire Teal & Bronze story here or more here in a story from The Georgetown Times.

To prepare herself for the Olympics, Jefferson has been training with the Star Athletics Club under coach Dennis Mitchell, a three-time Olympic medalist, in Clermont, Fla. She’s earned a sponsorship from Nike.

Watch this YouTube clip of Jefferson’s success at the 60-meter National Championship when she won Gold.

By Mark A. Stevens, director of tourism development for the Georgetown County Chamber of Commerce and South Carolina’s Hammock Coast