Gonezie Marie Josée Dominique Ta Lou-Smith (née Ta Lou) (born 18 November 1988) is an Ivorian sprinter competing in the 100 metres and 200 metres. She is a two-time World Championships medalist and is the African record holder in the 100 m.
After initially taking an interest in association football, Ta Lou-Smith made a successful switch to sprinting in 2008. She made a break through at the 2015 World Championships, making the semi-finals in both the 100 m and 200 m and setting personal bests in both events. At the 2016 Summer Olympics, she placed fourth in both of her specialist events, setting five personal bests throughout the Games. She improved the next year to win her first global medal at the 2017 World Championships, winning silver in the 100 m. She also won bronze in the same event at the 2019 World Championships. At the 2020 Summer Olympics, she finished fourth in the 100 m and fifth in the 200 m. One of the most reliable and consistent sprinters, Ta Lou-Smith has also made major global finals in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025. Indoors, Ta Lou-Smith won the silver medal in the 60 m at the 2018 World Indoor Championships.
In continental competitions, Ta Lou-Smith has been very successful, winning three gold medals at the African Athletics Championships, in the 200 m in 2016 and 2018, and in the 100 m also in 2018. Meanwhile, at the All-Africa Games, she won gold in the 100 m and 200 m in 2015 and in the 100 m in 2019.
Ta Lou-Smith's 100 m personal best of 10.72 s makes her the tenth-fastest woman and fastest African woman of all time. She also has the Ivorian record in the 200 m and the African record in the rarely-run straight 150 m.
Ta Lou's first passion was association football before her elder brother convinced her to change to sprinting in 2008. She trained in Paris and studied medicine at the Université d'Abobo-Adjamé in Abidjan.
Ta Lou played football at school in the neighbourhood of Koumassi, a suburb of Abidjan. Her brother objected when a women's team tried to get her to join them, fearing that she would become a tomboy. Friends of his suggested that if his sister enjoyed sports, she should take up athletics, as she was already regularly beating the boys in her class in sprints. By coincidence, Florence Olonade, the Ivory Coast 100 m champion in 1988, was a classmate of Ta Lou's mother and invited Ta Lou for a trial. She beat the girls who trained under Olonade in a 200 m race, even though she was running barefoot and had no time to prepare.
By the end of June 2007, she was part of the Ivorian 4 × 100 m team that won bronze at the West African Championships in Cotonou, Benin. She then made the Ivorian team for the African Junior Championships in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. She finished last in her 100 m heat with a time of 13.21 seconds. In September 2007, she won her first national 100 m title in a time of 12.9 seconds.
In 2008, she won both the 100 metres and 200 metres at the National Championships. She repeated this feat at the 2009 National Championships. That year, she finished seventh in the 200 metre race at the 2009 West African Championships in Porto-Novo, Benin, with a time of 25.67 despite a 1.8 m/s headwind. Her coach, Florence Onolade, made the sacrifice of sending the athlete he saw as promising to a coach with more experience, Jeannot Kouamé so that Ta Lou could progress further.
In 2010, Ta Lou was second at her international debut in the 100 metres at the Gabriel Tiacoh meet in Abidjan with a time of 12.10 seconds. In June 2010, she again won both the 100 metres and 200 metres 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. She undertook a scholarship offered to her by the Ivory Coast Athletics Federation and re-located to Shanghai University with her teammate Wilfried Koffi Hua.
In August 2011, she took part in the World University Games in Shenzhen, China, in both the 100 metre and 200 metre races. She lowered her personal bests to 11.87 seconds and 24.17 seconds, respectively. She was also a double finalist at the All-Africa Games in Mozambique. Additionally, she set a new 100 m personal best of 11.56 seconds in the heats.
In 2012, she won two bronze medals at the African Championships in Porto-Novo, Benin, in the 200 m (23.44) and the 4 × 100 m. She was also fourth in the individual 100 metre race. She set a new personal best in the semi-finals of the 200 m, 23.26 seconds.
2013–2015: Initial breakthrough
In 2013, Ta Lou 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. After struggling to combine her athletics training and her studies in Shanghai, she decided to return to Ivory Coast.
Her ex-coaches, Onolade and Kouamé, helped her try to enroll at one of the West African High Performance Training Centres in Lomé or Dakar. A space opened in the autumn and Ta Lou secured her place in December 2013. At the 2014 Gabriel Tiacoh meet, she finished second in the 100 m with a new personal best of 11.24 seconds. In August 2014, she competed at the African Championships in Marrakesh. She won bronze in the 100 m and silver in the 200 m, breaking her personal best with a time of 22.87 seconds, her first run under 23 seconds.
Following further good performances in 2014, she was awarded an Olympic Solidarity scholarship to prepare for the 2016 Olympic Games. In her first Diamond League appearance in Paris on 4 July 2015, Ta Lou improved her 100 m personal best to 11.06 seconds. At the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, she made the semi-finals of both the 100 m and 200 m, setting personal bests of 11.04 s and 22.56 s, respectively. At the 2015 African Games in Brazzaville, Ta Lou completed a sprint double by winning both the 100 m and 200 m. In the 100 m, she ran a new personal best with a new Games record time of 11.02. She was named Best Female Athlete of the All-Africa Games and honoured at the ANOC Awards in Washington in November.
2016–2018: Worldwide success and world medals
In 2016, Ta Lou competed at the World Indoor Championships, finishing seventh in the final of the 60 m. At the African Championships in Durban, Ta Lou won gold in the 200 m and took bronzes in the 100 m and 4 × 100 m relay. She improved her 100 m personal best to 10.96 s in winning her heat at the London Diamond League on 23 July, her first time under the 11-second barrier. She went onto win the final in the same time.
At the 2016 Summer Olympics, Ta Lou ran a new personal best of 10.94 s in her 100 m semi-final to progress to the final as a non-automatic qualifier. In the final, she finished fourth in another personal best of 10.86 s, losing out on a medal by 0.007 s to Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. In the 200 m, Ta Lou won her semi-final in a new personal best of 22.28 s, improving on the mark of 22.31 s she had set in the heats, to make the final. The next day, in the final, Ta Lou once again finished fourth in another new personal best of 22.21 s.