Sha’Carri Richardson is the most exciting, compelling and intriguing sprinter since Usain Bolt. The world just does not know it yet.
It is not only that the 21-year-old has sonic boom speed — last month in Florida she ran 100m in 10.72 seconds, the sixth-fastest time in history — and mesmerizing acceleration. It is everything else, too: the look, the backstory, the attitude, and, yes, the baggage.
It has been 25 years since an American woman won an Olympic 100m gold, but while Richardson has not raced at world level, she is a below-the-radar favorite.
Photo: AFP
It has been some journey. She was abandoned by her mother and tried to take her own life at high school. She has talked openly about her mental health struggles. It has made her many successes — including a string of college titles and junior world records — even more impressive.
Today at the Diamond League meet in Gateshead, England, she catapults into world class for the first time. Alongside would be two of her three biggest rivals for gold in Tokyo: Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the world 100m champion, and Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith, the world 200m champion.
Richardson is clearly ready to make a statement.
“I don’t think I have been given the respect yet,” she told the British athletics press pack in what turned out to be a lively and often confrontational Zoom call. “When I run a time somebody’s always trying to find something. It’s ‘I’m just fast for an American,’ or ‘I’m just fast because I’m young.’ I feel like there’s always an excuse for my success. I can’t allow myself to be starstruck on Sunday.”
What does she make of the 34-year-old Fraser-Pryce being a super mom as well as a great sprinter, one journalist asked.
“This interview is about Sha’Carri,” she said. “Do you have any questions for me?”
When pressed, she softened.
“I prefer not to talk about other athletes,” she said. “But I’m actually very proud that she is a black woman who is continuing to have a career while having a family as well. She’s a phenomenon. She has all the respect from me.”
As for Asher-Smith, Richardson said: “I honestly don’t know a lot about her, but she’s a great runner. I’m not ever going to discredit her.”
Richardson smiled when it was suggested that her long nails, dyed hair and tattoos — including a dragon on her left shoulder — give her a flamboyant streak. Her look has drawn comparisons with the controversial 100m world record holder Florence-Griffith Joyner.
She said it is Bolt’s journey, from the confines of track and field to a global superstar, that she is most looking to emulate.
“Absolutely,” she said. “I want women to see they can be exactly who they are. You don’t have to be all quiet and shy, unless you want to be. You don’t have to shield yourself. I felt generations of women before us were like that. That’s a very big message I would like to send.”
It is powerful stuff, but some were alarmed that when Richardson turned professional two years ago, she chose the former US sprinter Dennis Mitchell as her coach even though he was banned for two years in 1998 after testing positive for testosterone.
Mitchell’s defense, that he had drank five bottles of beer and had sex with his wife at least four times because “it was her birthday, the lady deserved a treat,” was rejected by the International Association of Athletics Federations.
Eyebrows have also been raised by the fact that Mitchell coaches Justin Gatlin, who has been banned twice for doping offenses.
Richardson insists that Mitchell has been transparent about his past.
“You’all don’t have to worry about any doping situations coming from me,” she said. “I back him 1,000 percent.”
She insisted that her reputation would not be tarnished by association.
“No, not at all,” she said. “Because I know these men. I know what they are about.”
To Richardson’s credit, she doesn’t shy away from answering these necessary questions — at least at first.
“I’m a very transparent person,” she said. “People on the outside asking questions and making comments don’t know what work is being put in. They just believe anything they read on the Internet.”
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