Andscape at the Olympics is an ongoing series exploring the Black athletes and culture around the 2024 Paris Games.
PARIS — By all rights, Sha’Carri Richardson should have been defending her 2021 Tokyo Olympic gold medal here on Saturday.
Instead, the 24-year-old sprinter spent the last three years recovering from a mistake that cost her an Olympic berth and looking for a gold medal finish to complete her comeback.
Things don’t always align so neatly.
On a rain-soaked track at Stade de France on Saturday, Richardson, whose signature is fashion and flair, earned a silver medal in the 100-meter finals behind Julien Alfred of St. Lucia. Alfred won her country’s first Olympic medal. Richardson’s fellow American and training partner, Melissa Jefferson, earned the bronze.
I was eager to hear Richardson’s reaction to her second-place finish. Would she consider it a win? A moral victory? A disappointment? Did she plan to hang around for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, when she’ll be 28?
Those questions will remain unanswered, for now, because Richardson did not show up for the traditional post-race press conference.
The unofficial explanation was that the two American sprinters were brought to the wrong interview areas after the race, leaving Alfred to appear at the session by herself. Alfred, for her part, said she thought nothing of the two absences. “It’s my first time here, I didn’t know what to expect,” she said. “I’m just happy to be up here as an Olympic champion.”
Indeed, legacy speaks for itself.
Andy Astfalck/BSR Agency/Getty Images
I won’t make too much of Richardson not facing the media after Saturday’s race, but I do wonder if, given all of her bravado in the three years leading up to the games (“I’m a Bentley. Fast, expensive … fancy.” “I’m not back, I’m better.”), winning a silver felt like a loss.
Richardson was the second high profile Team USA athlete to declare that they were on a redemption tour. Going into these games, Simone Biles, the world’s greatest gymnast, said she was out to atone for her performance at the 2021 games when she pulled out of several events because of a disorienting mental condition (the twisties), which she felt impaired her ability to compete. The U.S. gymnastics team, heavily favored to win its third consecutive gold medal in Tokyo, won silver instead.
In a string of spectacular performances in Paris, Biles led Team USA to a team gold medal and won gold in the all-around and vault as well.
Richardson was an overwhelming favorite to win gold heading into Saturday’s final. There was no Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica, who missed the Games with an Achilles injury. There was no Shericka Jackson of Jamaica, who withdrew from the 100-meter dash earlier this week. And just before Saturday’s race, Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce, another Jamaican star, pulled out of the race with an injury.
For Richardson, Saturday was supposed to be the culmination of a dramatic rise after a fall from grace in 2021. After she won the 100-meter competition at the 2021 U.S. Olympic trials, Richardson tested positive for THC, the primary ingredient in cannabis. While marijuana is legal in Oregon where the trials were held, the drug has been forbidden in the Olympics since 1999.
At the time, Richardson said she learned about the death of her biological mother before the race. She said she was devastated and smoked marijuana for stress management. Richardson was suspended for a month and was also not selected for Team USA’s 4×100 relay team.
During a subsequent television interview, Richardson appeared to minimize the significance of the failed drug test. “When it comes to Sha’Carri Richardson, it’s never been a steroid,” she said. “It will never be a steroid attached to the name Sha’Carri Richardson. The charge and what the situation was, was marijuana. I’m not encouraging anybody to do it. I’m not saying, ‘Oh, don’t do it,’ or anything like that. But if you choose to do things in your personal time [like that] you just should know or be aware of the consequences or find different ways to cope.”
Leading up to these Paris games, Richardson coped by winning, which perhaps fueled expectations that she would win gold. She opened the 2023 season by running the fourth-fastest women’s 100 time in history to win the Miramar Invitational.
A month later, she set a meet record in the 100 to notch her first Diamond League crown in Doha, Qatar. In August 2023 at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Richardson won gold medals in the 100 and 4×100.
Petr David Josek/AP PHOTO
Coming into these games, Richardson was one of the top performers in track and won the 100 easily at this year’s U.S. Olympic trials. Of course, it could be that I was the one who was disappointed on Saturday. Disappointed over my unrealistic expectations that Richardson might be the reincarnation of Florence Griffith Joyner, the indomitable Flo Jo.
We can be faked out by the style. Like Griffith Joyner, Richardson is tenacious and stylish with her signature acrylic fingernails and colorful hairstyles.
What she does not yet have is an enduring legacy.
At the U.S. Olympic trials in July 1988, Griffith Joyner ran a world-record 10.49 seconds in the 100 meters. In the 200 meters finals of the Seoul Olympics, she ran a world record 21.34 en route to gold.
Ten years later, Griffith Joyner tragically died at age 38. Rumors and suspicious swirled around Griffith Joyner, but she never tested positive for steroids and that’s enough for me. Both world records still stand, and no female sprinter has come close to breaking them.
What will Richardson’s legacy be? She has a chance to win a gold medal next week as part of Team USA’s 4×100 relay team. After that, there may be three more years of running before the Los Angeles Games in 2028.
After she earned her berth on the Olympic team, Richardson told reporters that the years had made her wiser.
“In the past three years, I’ve grown a better understanding of myself, a deeper respect and appreciation for my gift that I have in the sport, as well as my responsibility to the people that believe in me and support me,” Richardson said.
Time will tell.
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By: William C. Rhoden
Title: Sha’Carri Richardson takes silver, but her track story is still to be determined
Sourced From: andscape.com/features/shacarri-richardson-takes-silver-paris-olympics/
Published Date: Sun, 04 Aug 2024 01:15:03 +0000
