Three years later, Sha’Carri Richardson is an Olympian at last

SAINT-DENIS, France — A few minutes before noon, Sha’Carri Richardson pressed her nails into the purple track of Stade de France. She settled her neon-green spikes into the blocks inside Lane 6. The stadium, delirious and packed near to its 80,000-seat capacity even on a humid morning of qualification rounds and decathlon heats, hushed.

In the past three years, Richardson had worn many titles: “that girl,” suspended athlete, world champion. After the gun sounded Friday, she added another. Under gray haze on the outskirts of Paris, Sha’Carri Richardson became an Olympian.

Richardson had waited three years after she first made an Olympic team to make her Olympic debut. Friday, she began her two-day quest to win a gold medal at the Paris Olympics and retain her status as the fastest woman in the world.

The race itself was near-formality. In the first of nine opening round heats, Richardson cruised to an easy victory in 10.94 seconds, her hair pulled into a billowy ponytail that stretched all the way down her back. She crossed with ample room to spare and conserved her most explosive sprinting for Saturday night’s semifinals and final.

Richardson received the largest roar from the crowd before her race. Afterward, she lingered on the track to watch the heat of American Melissa Jefferson, one of her two training partners, along with Twanisha Terry, who also made the 100-meter field and advanced to the semifinals without issue.

Richardson stopped briefly to chat with the NBC affiliate from Dallas, her hometown. “To be at the Olympics is a phenomenal feeling,” Richardson told the station. “I’m eager and excited.” She walked past reporters in the mixed zone area, smiling and as she said hello. Then she exited and prepared for Saturday night and the most important 10.7 or so seconds of her sprinting life.

An Olympic gold would be the finishing touch of Richardson’s redemptive arc. She became an instant star as she won the 2021 U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene, Ore., magnetic and stylish and dominant. A week later, she tested positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, which is on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s banned list. She explained that she had ingested marijuana to cope with learning her biological mother had died.

The banishment cost her a spot in Tokyo and officially erased her trials victory. She finished last at her return race. In 2022, she failed to make it out of the first round of the U.S. championships. She lashed out at perceived critics.

Over the next year, Richardson developed “a better understanding of myself,” she said after she won the U.S. trials in June. That came with “a deeper love and a deeper care for the talent that I have been given,” she said. It began to show at the 2023 national championships, where she discarded a Technicolor wig before stepping into her blocks and winning. Richardson then took the world championships in Budapest, placing her atop the sprinting world heading into these Olympics.

Richardson arrived in Paris nearly two weeks ago with her coach Dennis Mitchell, Jefferson and Terry. The three sprinters are all at their first Olympics, and for them, the experience has been richer through being together.

“We have heart-to-hearts every once in a while,” Jefferson said. “Not all the time, because nobody likes that mushy stuff. But we always let each other know how much we appreciate and love another, and how important we are to each other’s dreams.”

They had not seen inside Stade de France before Friday morning, Terry said, because the time afforded U.S. athletes to tour it would have limited their practice. Mitchell briefly huddled with the trio before they left the warm-up area. He instructed them not to scan the crowd for family at the risk being overwhelmed by the sheer scale.

“Look down the track,” Mitchell told them. “Stay focused.”

As the in-stadium camera focused on her, Richardson kissed her index finger and pointed to sky. In the next 11 seconds, she did nothing to invalidate her status as a heavy favorite, a position that has been only strengthened by outside circumstances.

A scant few women on Earth could challenge Richardson if she runs at the peak of her powers Saturday night, and two of them won’t be on the start line. An Achilles injury knocked out Jamaican Elaine Thompson-Herah, who set the Olympic record (9.61 seconds) in Tokyo. Shericka Jackson, another Jamaican superstar, hurt her calf in a July tuneup and pulled out of the 100 meters while remaining on the 200 start list.

Richardson’s other Jamaican rival may have finally surpassed her prime. At 37, Fraser-Pryce, the Tokyo silver medalist, remains a threat to win any race she enters, and she ran the second-fastest first-round time at 10.92 seconds. But even legends have expiration dates. Fraser-Pryce won the Jamaican trials in 10.91, a time aided by a tailwind that ties for 11th-fastest in the world this year.

Richardson’s biggest challenger is likely 23-year-old Julien Alfred of Saint Lucia, who won her heat in 10.95 seconds. It could also be Jefferson, the 2022 U.S. champion and trials runner-up in June, or even Terry, who in 2022 ran the anchor leg for the world champion 4X100 relay team.

Between injuries and Americans who missed the podium at trials, three of the eight fastest women in the world entering the Games this year did not reach the Olympic 100 meters.

In a competitive sense, the clouds have parted for Richardson. No matter what happens Saturday night, she is an Olympian. She lost that title once. After Friday, it can never again be taken from her.