For a time, Jamaica was a place Junelle Bromfield was afraid to return to. After the 2024 Paris Olympics, the Jamaican sprinter faced online abuse and death threats, with some of the backlash directed at her relationship with Noah Lyles and her comments about Jamaican athletics. Now, after marrying Lyles and stepping away from competitive track, Bromfield has returned home for a personal reason: to say goodbye to the man who laid the foundation for her athletics career.

On August 17, Jamaica’s Minister of State for Education, Youth, Skills and Information, Olivia Grange, shared several photos from her meeting with Bromfield on Instagram. The photos showed Bromfield alongside Grange and other Jamaican officials, including Minister of State Rhoda Moy Crawford. Former 100 metres world record holder and Olympic sprinter Asafa Powell was also present during the visit.

Grange revealed that Bromfield stopped by to see her before returning to the United States after attending the celebration of life for her former coach, Stephen “Franno” Francis, on August 15. For Bromfield, the occasion carried a deeply personal meaning. She began working with Francis in 2016 after joining his training group, and he remained an important figure throughout her development as an athlete.

According to Grange, Bromfield told her that she had to “come home” for Francis’ service because he was the man who laid the foundation for her success in athletics. Her decision to return was particularly striking because of what she had experienced after the 2024 Paris Olympics when she faced severe online abuse and death threats. Now, nearly two years later, she has made the journey home, but for a very different reason.

Bromfield’s partnership with Francis began in 2016. During her years working with him, she went on to achieve some of the biggest milestones of her career. At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Bromfield was part of Jamaica’s women’s 4×400 metres relay team that won the bronze medal. In 2022, she helped Jamaica win gold in the women’s 4×400m relay at the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade. Later that year, she contributed to the team’s silver medal at the World Championships.

Bromfield went on to represent Jamaica at the 2024 Paris Olympics, competing in the women’s 400m and mixed 4×400m relay. Interestingly,  Bromfield’s return to Jamaica also comes after a major change in her personal life. She married American sprint star Noah Lyles earlier this year and is now known as Junelle Lyles.

She officially announced her retirement in July 2026, but she still returned to Jamaica to honor her former coach. Grange also used her meeting with Junelle to raise the issue of athlete welfare. “I told Junelle that one of the things I wanted to see happen was for more athletes to sign up for the Government’s Athletics Insurance Plan,” Grange wrote.

However, marriage was not the sole reason she decided to leave the sport.

Why did Junelle Bromfield walk away from track?

Junelle Bromfield had been chasing the dream of becoming an Olympian since she was eight years old. When she finally won an Olympic bronze medal in the 4×400m relay at the Tokyo 2020 Games, she expected the achievement to feel much more fulfilling. Instead, she said it did not feel like the dream she had spent her life working toward.

At first, Junelle thought maybe the problem was that she had not won an individual Olympic medal. That motivated her to continue training and qualify individually for the 400m at the 2024 Paris Olympics. But even before competing in Paris, she had started to realize that track and field was no longer the dream she wanted to pursue.

She also looked back at what athletics had cost her personally. Junelle said she had been living in dorms since she was around 11, which meant missing important moments with her nieces and nephews and spending less time with her family. Her mother was diagnosed with cancer during training for the Olympics in 2021 and passed away.

Junelle remembered making long trips to visit her in hospital, and only being able to be with her for a short period of time due to her training. Those experiences caused her to wonder if it was worth all that she sacrificed for athletics.

So, after the 2024 Paris Olympics, Junelle stepped away from competitive running and eventually made her retirement official in her July 30, 2026 PEOPLE interview. She now wants to build something outside athletics, including exploring her interest in podcasting and creative work. She specifically said her new ambitions have “Nothing to do with running.”

And after years of giving everything to athletics, Bromfield is now ready to build a life defined by more than what she could achieve on the track.