The St Vincent and the Grenadines star began track life as a sprinter and nearly turned her back on the sport when even the roof over her head kept changing.

But she stuck with it and got her reward – qualifying for the Paris 2024 Games and becoming the first athlete from her nation to compete in an Olympic final.

“Shafiqua three or four years ago was ready to quit track,” Maloney (pictured), 27, said. “I was trying so much to get the resources to do what I knew I was capable of.”

Maloney said she was “blinded by rage and sadness” in the build-up to her breakout Olympic success when, due to financial hardship, she spent a year without a settled place to live.

“Not having a place to call my home (and) moving around every couple of months, that was really hard," she said.

"My first day, I was on the streets. I have a picture of me laying out my suitcase in some bushes. It was so funny."

“Then I moved into a home with some Christians. But then their son had to come back for Thanksgiving and I moved into a building on campus.”

Maloney lived in a dormitory with “a bunch of kids” right up until she made the Olympic qualifying standard indoors.

“Fortunately, I had the right support system around me to motivate me when I couldn't go on any longer,” she said. My coach said, ‘control the controllables’ and so I controlled what I could, and that was the effort I put in on the track."

That coach is Chris Johnson, who has been at her side through it all since 2018.

“We've given each other reasons to knock each other out, and there were times when he didn't get paid, as well,” Maloney said.

“But he stuck with me through thick and thin.”

Constant battle

Born and raised in St Vincent and the Grenadines, Maloney moved to the United States to study, ultimately graduating with a master’s degree in operations management from the University of Arkansas.

When her career on the US college track circuit was stuttering, she says it was Johnson who decided to move her up a distance to the 800m.

At first, she was not entirely in tune with the decision.

“I had no choice in that,” she said. “For the first two years, I might have hated him a little bit (for it). But I realised when you're mentally against it, it makes it so much harder. So I've learned to love and appreciate the event.

“When I got to Paris, it was a constant battle of just trying to manage myself mentally. Because I cried every day in Paris.”

The tears of anguish soon turned to joy, after Maloney clocked a then-personal-best time of one minute 57.59 seconds on her way to finishing fourth in the final.

“I've become a very resilient person.”

"And I know if I could go through that and accomplish what I did at the Olympic Games, imagine what I could do when I have the full support that I need.”

Worryingly for the rest of the field in the Women’s 800m at Glasgow 2026, Maloney believes she is still only racing at “maybe 70 or 80 percent” of what she is capable of.  

“It might just look like two laps around the track, but there is a lot to running the 800 and I don't think I've figured out half of what needs to be figured out,” she said.

Maloney will learn a little more about herself and the event when she goes in the first round of the Women’s 800m at the EDF Scotstoun Stadium on Monday evening.

The Athletics, presented by Longines, begins on Monday 27 July. For the full schedule, click here.