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PARIS – Three years after testing positive for marijuana and letting an Olympic berth slip from his grasp, Sha’Carri Richardson arrived in Paris on the verge of completing the kind of redemption often found in the headlines. Hollywood.
A trip that began with the disappointment of missing out on a chance to compete in Tokyo seemed destined to end with a rousing celebration in the purple rain of the Stade de France.
What happened instead on Saturday was a reminder that real life rarely has fairytale endings. Saint Lucia’s Julien Alfred ran away from Richardson with remarkable ease, crossing the finish line in 10.72 seconds to take first place and earn his Caribbean country its first Olympic medal.
Richardson finished second in 10.87 seconds, a poor start to put all the gold out of reach after the first 30 meters. He had to rely on his last lap in the second half of the race just to break out of the pack, let alone get anywhere near Alfred.
About 15 minutes into the race, Richardson walked past reporters and did not take any questions. He only spoke when a reporter spoke to him and called his name wrong.
“I’m Sha’Carri,” he said quietly.
As one of the most visible athletes of the Paris Olympics, Richardson faced intense pressure to live up to his status as the pre-race favorite and win gold. Her confident smile and acrylic nails have been unmissable in the United States for months, between an NBC ad blitz, a Vogue cover and ads for Olay, Nike, Sprite, Oikos and PowerAde.
Few women around the world have the speed to challenge Richardson, and three of them weren’t in a surprising line-up near her Saturday night.
An Achilles injury has sidelined Elaine Thompson-Herah for most of this season. Shericka Jackson, another Jamaican star, suffered a calf injury during the July Tuneup race and decided to focus on just the 200 in Paris. Three-time Olympic gold medalist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica suffered a dramatic scratch ahead of Saturday’s final just one day after finishing second in the sprint in the prelims.
The remaining challenger was Alfred, a former Teas University standout who won the 2022 and 2023 NCAA championships in the women’s 100 meters. Alfred beat Richardson in the second round on Saturday and hit him with a big speed when it mattered the most.
There is nothing more complicated in sports than 100 meters, yet Richardson’s path to the finish line at the Stade de France was simple. In the past three years, she’s gone through more seasons than Taylor Swift, from “That Girl,” to being hung up and miserable, to mad at the world, to “I’m not coming back, I’m better.”
In her first race since the suspension, in August 2021, Richardson joined many of the women she could see at the Olympics when she was in Tokyo. It was his chance to prove that his presence could have prevented the Jamaican sweep.
Richardson finished the day, not only behind all three Jamaican winners but also behind five other competitors. Afterward, he addressed his enemies directly in a critical interview with NBC’s Lewis Johnson.
“Read me if you want,” he said. “Say all you want. Because I’m here to stay. I’m not done. I’m the sixth fastest woman in the game. Nobody can ever take that away from me.”
Social media controversies and other controversies temporarily made Richardson one of the most polarizing athletes on and off the field. At the 2022 USA National Games, Richardson called out reporters who were in attendance for allegedly disrespecting him and other athletes. He also made the mistake of criticizing some of his Jamaican opponents in X and angered the country’s vocal fans.
The Richardson of that era is not much like the one most of America has become familiar with this summer. He dedicated himself to his training, took more time away from social media, and stopped constantly criticizing people he thought were criticizing him. Even many Jamaican fans find it easy to support him.
These days, Richardson’s only explanation for his past is the five words he’s repeated over and over for the past year: “I’m not back, I’m better.” He has proven himself on the track, winning World Cup gold in the 100 meters from Lane 9 and following that up by qualifying for Paris with the fastest time in the world so far this year.
“In the last three years, I’ve gotten to know myself more,” Richardson said earlier this summer at the US Olympic trials. “I have deep respect and appreciation for my gift in this game as well as my responsibility to the people who believe in me and support me. I feel that all these aspects have helped me grow and will continue to help me grow. ”
Richardson arrived in Paris in mid-July with his coach Dennis Mitchell and training partners Twanisha Terry and Melissa Jefferson. For the three sprinters, having their first Olympics together made it all the more satisfying.
“When one of us goes down, the other two can go up,” Terry said. It’s such a joy to get that moral support.
Terry said that Mitchell’s pre-race advice to his three riders was “when you go there, just look at the track. Stay focused. Don’t look up and try to find people.”
Richardson looked down and saw the gold medal in the 100 meter dash. Seconds later, Alfred was running away with it.
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