Sha’Carri Richardson’s victory earns a spot on the U.S. Olympic team

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Two steps from the finish line, Sha’Carri Richardson began pounding her chest.

She knew she had won. Anyone who doesn’t see her as a sprinter who may be beaten at the Paris Olympics this summer should probably reconsider.

Richardson made the final stop on her “I’m Not Back, I’m Better” tour at Saturday’s U.S. track trials when she achieved a 100-meter sprint of 10.71 seconds, making her the fastest woman in the world this 12 months and officially won her a trip to France, where women start racing on August 2.

The final was the third game during which Richardson didn’t start phenomenally. It also meant that she finished the race without losing points for the third time in the meeting.

She edged training partner Melissa Jefferson, the 2022 U.S. champion, by 0.09 seconds. Another sprinter from coach Dennis Mitchell’s camp, Twanisha Terry, finished third and earned a spot on the women’s 100-meter team.

“I feel honored,” Richardson said. “I feel like every chapter I’ve been through has been preparing me for this moment.”

Seconds after celebrating crossing the line, she knelt down, clearly overcome with emotion.

“The emotion was simply the joy of the hard work I put in not only physically on the track, but also mentally and emotionally to grow into the mature young lady I am today,” she said.

It was quite an experience for the 24-year-old Texan. Three years ago, she also won this race (in 10.86 seconds), but the victory was stripped of her due to a positive marijuana test that exposed all the things from her own struggles with depression to anti-doping regulations which have remained unchanged since then.

Then the labor began. Richardson said she emerged a higher and more tuned-in person than the one who lit up the same Hayward Field in 2021 – her orange hair flowing and searching like a star of the sport.

It took almost two years before the results were back on track. But in 2023 she won the national championship and declared: “I’m not back, I’m better,” and a month later she confirmed it with the world champion title.

“I would say the message I’m sending is believe in yourself no matter what,” Richardson said, echoing the same thoughts he had last 12 months in Budapest. “You want to stay solid within yourself. Stay grounded in yourself and your hard work.”

Presenting her with a gold medal in Paris is dangerous considering the competition she is going to face. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Shericka Jackson and two-time defending champion Elaine Thompson-Herah have 19 Olympic medals to their name – Richardson has never been to the Games – and all are scheduled to compete at the trials in Jamaica next weekend.

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Thompson-Herah’s recent injury confounded these calculations. Meanwhile, Fraser-Pryce has been a rare commodity in 2024 and Jackson is a two-time 200m world champion – a race during which Richardson finished third at the world championships and can compete in next week’s trials.

In the US, Americans feed off one another, and Mitchell, a great figure in sprinting in the Nineties, achieved the rarity of placing all three of his top sprinters in the Olympics.

“The odds of getting all three are probably zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-something,” Mitchell said. “But these girls didn’t care about the odds. They went on the market, that they had a plan, they executed it well and so they deserve all the things they got.

Considering she improved on her best time of the season despite a mediocre start, and after taking a hit to her chest and pulling herself up before the end of the race, it’s hard to disclaim that Richardson is the favorite. When asked if she had plans to find time for the Olympics, she didn’t bite.

“I just know that if I run the race and run it, and I’m trained to be ready for it, the time will come,” she said.