Olympic athlete and Africa’s fastest woman in history Marie-Josee Ta Lou will walk down the aisle soon.
Marie-Josee Ta Lou has taken time to share her pre-wedding shoot on her Instagram page.
The athlete shared a series of pictures where she and her husband-to-be dressed in their traditional attire.
She captioned the post:
“An Afro-Caribbean love.
Welcome to our world. Trinidad 🇹🇹 Côte d’Ivoire 🇨🇮
thanks to my big bro @sirfriedwil for taking this beautiful shoot of us at his studio @_the.g.h.o.s.t_, you are really the best.”
About the Olympic Athlete
Gonezie Marie Josée Dominique Ta Lou, who was born on 18 November 1988 is an Ivorian sprinter competing in the 100 metres and 200 metres.
Ta Lou finished fourth in the 100 metres and 200 metres finals at the 2016 Olympic Games, missing out on a medal in the 100m by seven-thousandths of a second (0.007).
She then won silver medals in the 100 metres and 200 metres at the 2017 World Championships, the latter in the national record time of 22.08 secs. Her 100 metres best is 10.72 secs (2022), thus making her the African record holder.
Ta Lou first passion was association football before her elder brother convinced her to change to sprinting in 2008. She was voted the 2015 African Athlete of the Year by the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa. She trained in Paris, France, and studied medicine at the Université d’Abobo-Adjamé in Abidjan.
In 2010, Ta Lou made her first impact on the international scene, finishing second place in the 100 m at the international Gabriel Tiacoh meet in Abidjan in a time of 12.10 seconds.
In June 2010, she again won both the 100 m and 200 m at the national championships. She then competed in her first senior African Championships, finishing sixth in her 100 m semi-final in a time of 12.16 seconds. She also ran in the 200 m heats.
At the end of that summer, she was awarded a 4-year sports scholarship in China, by the Ivory Coach Athletics Federation. Her coach, Jeannot Kouamé, had pushed her to apply for the scholarship, as he could see her potential but felt she could not fulfill it if she stayed in the Ivory Coast.
In 2012, she won a bronze at the African Championships in Porto-Novo, Benin in the 200m (23.44) and in the 4 × 100 m. She was also fourth in the individual 100 m. She set a new personal best in the semi-final, 23.26 seconds.
In 2013 she won the 100 and 200 m at the Gabriel Tiacoh meet in front of a home crowd in Abidjan. She competed in the World University Games in Kazan in July, reaching the semi-final in the 100 m and finishing eighth in the final of the 200 m in a time of 23.63.
Following further good performances in 2014, she was awarded an Olympic Solidarity scholarship to prepare for the 2016 Olympic Games.
She ran a new 100 m personal best 11.08 m (wind-assisted) winning the Dakar World Challenge in May 2015. She improved that time to 11.06 seconds at the Paris Diamond League meeting on the 4th of July, her first Diamond League entry.
Ta Lou also performed very well at the Rio Olympics. She reached both finals and finished 4th both in the 100 m and 200 m. Her runs included a new PB of 10.94 in the 100 m semi-final, qualifying to the 100m final with the 7th time.
In the 200m, she ran 0.5 seconds faster than her previous season’s best, winning her heat in a new personal best of 22.31 despite suffering from flu. She went faster again in the semi-final with a time of 22.28. In the final, Ta Lou set a new national record, with a time of 22.21, 0.03 seconds faster than Murielle Ahouré’s previous national record.
2017 did not get off to a good start for Ta Lou as she had been ill for most of the winter. After the indoor season, she made up for her lack of training in the outdoor season, setting a new national record in the 200m, 22.16, in Lausanne on 6 July. She then won the Monaco Diamond League 200 m.
She then travelled back home to Abidjan to anchor the 4 × 100 m relay in the Francophone Games. This was the host countries first gold in that competition.
At the 2017 World Champions, Ta Lou won the silver in the 100 m, narrowly missing out on gold, having led for most of the race. She then followed this up with another silver medal in the 200M, setting a new National Record of 22.08 in the process.
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