Unbiased Sha'carri opinions

She’s still young. She could eventually compete with or even beat ETH given her top end speed. She could also fizzle out and never win a medal. Very hard to say which direction she will go from here.

Awsi Dooger wrote:

No woman is going to run 10.6 consistently. Let's not get carried away with the recent trends. Everything tends to drift back to the beginning...to wonderful normalcy.

The other day when I told someone that Thompson-Herah would be in the 10.7s at Paris he acted as if I were nuts. That's how addicted everyone is to one direction only. It's like regression doesn't exist.

I will counter this by saying as track surfaces and running shoes improve, so will performances.

As for ETH, she ran 10.72 with no push from Shelly whilst tired. Her previous 3 races were 10.61, 10.54, 10.64. She will run sub 10.7 again this season (likely Diamond League Championships). I'd say that's running 10.6 consistently.

As for Sha'Carri. The undisputable facts are: She maintains her top end speed better than nearly everyone (ETH lone exception). Her starts range from "not bad to awful" and while so many have said that it's fixable she has yet to show that she can.

If she operated with a full deck, she would be dangerous on the international circuit. Her issues are mental. She might mature enough and develop into the sprinter that many believe she can be, but by that time she'll be running a washed Shelly Ann, so beating her won't be that massive of a deal. The question is will she have the longevity to challenge ETH. MOST sprinter's window is VERY VERY short. The idea that Sha'Carri will have an extended period of time to become what she looked like she would become is silly.

The entourage she has assembled this early on tells you all you need to know. She is not going to surprisingly mature and decide to surround herself with something she is not familiar with. Perhaps the structure of college makes more sense for somebody like her with unhinged diva tendencies. Once the Jamaicans age out she should dominate a weak field, if she is around that long. I would not count on it.

They are all in the same boat.

Amazing how everytime an athlete gets caught, they immediately become slower. She will be tested constantly and never be fast again.

Nothing to do with the question.

She looked very good at the US trials. I think the positive pot test really affected her. Certainly a big disappointment not to go to the Olympics because of such a trivial matter.

Given the right drug regimen she has the same potential as the Jamaicans, 10.25

Yes she looked good while using a banned substance. Without it, she is as good as the best high school runners.

Dr Foreal wrote:

Amazing how everytime an athlete gets caught, they immediately become slower. She will be tested constantly and never be fast again.

What are you talking about…

Blake got popped, came back faster.

SAFP got popped, came back faster.

Gatlin got popped (twice), came back faster BOTH times.

She's obviously very talented, running an NCAA record(?) as a freshman to be NCAA champion, one of the fastest times in the world (then choked at USAs and didn't make the world team).. Then in 2021 puts up one of the fastest times ever in the world (and chokes on a blunt to fail a drug test and doesn't go to the olympics). So she is capable of running very fast, but seems to not do it when it matters or self sabotages herself to not do it when it matters. Sprinting is a young person's sport, she's now 21, will be 22 next track season. She's probably got just a few years left before more young talent comes up behind her, and she's pissing it away. She is also incredibly immature and speaks like an idiot. She is too dumb to fully take advantage of this gift of hers. Obviously it's a gift because she was NCAA champion as a freshman, I highly doubt she was doing crazy hard training in middle school and even early high school. She barely has done the sport and was immediately one of the fastest in the world. That's talent. And she's blowing it.

This right. And not to violate the rules of this tread from the beginning, but you know, in an event decided by hundredths, her personality and craziness is relevant. She is going off in the wrong direction. If she's that unstable, she will overtrain, undertrain, not concentrate on what matters, and all that figures in. She feels like a Ta Lou ceiling to me if stable.

Dr Foreal wrote:

Yes she looked good while using a banned substance. Without it, she is as good as the best high school runners.

Pot is not a performance enhancer and that's why her ban was only 1 month:

If it was, the current WRs would be from the 70s.

Do you know what the word immediately means? How fast did they run a month or two after getting busted?

She can beat the Jamaicans after she's had some major races under her belt. She didn't look comfortable facing them and being placed between them. After a few meets and she gets her nerves under control. She'll beat them. But she has a lot of work to do.

Yes, absolutely she can take on the Jamaicans. Just not yet.

In a way, it might be a blessing in disguise that she didn't run the 2021 Olympics. With all the hype, she was getting treated like Usain Bolt in the media, when really she may not have even medaled. I think at most she would have gotten bronze. That would have been a significant reality check that might have hurt her mentally and affected her progress. Avoiding the Olympics, and getting that reality check at the Pre-Classic instead, gives us a chance to see her in a more realistic light for the WC's in 2022. She won't go there with a microscope anymore, and she'll have time to breathe and grow.

Sha'Carri DOES need to grow up. And I know that's not what this thread is about, but three more years is 2 WC's and then the 2024 Olympics, and it gives Sha'Carri time to mature, and space to do so. The microscope proved to be too much and she proved to be not yet mature enough to take it on (I mean honestly--who would be?). Now that things have cooled, she can come back with a fresher head.

I do believe she will medal in the 2022 and 2023 WC's and win gold in 2024 unless some other young'n comes along to usurp her.

I'm going to assume that she is too lazy and shiftless to train more, so she has reached her limit unless she dopes better.

Trackandfield4839 wrote:

Yeah. It's this stupid fight between the Jamaicans and Sha'carri. It's unbearable. I wouldn't lose sleep over a spoiled 21 year old girl talking trash. I doubt the Elaine and Shelly care. Everyone else should also chill the heck out.

I'm eager to see her 2022 season. She's a very gifted runner but will she be able to rise to the occasion at the world championship? Running fast at slow meets doesn't really matter.

She made a name for herself and knows what her track personality brings to this sport and now she’s spoiled? Y’all crucify people like rupp for being boring then someone decides to be extra and entertaining then you bring them down?? I just don’t get it. If she was a gold medal winner you would just talk about how she’s a POS.

You’re right running at slow meets doesn’t matter but it does help athletes know where which athletes may choose to race next year. Look at BU, everyone and their mom goes there because they think the track is so fast plus the meets are always stacked. The 100-200 are no different when it comes to having good meet selection. She’s run the times and she will win some medals. Why discredit a 21 year old rn, she’s the future of American sprinting for the foreseeable future, if you don’t like her, don’t watch her!

You guys on letsrun are funny.

Sha'Carri is a product of her time. She doesn't hold anything back, puts herself out there on social media and walks all over the unwritten rules about how elite T&F athletes are supposed to behave in the media spotlight. I actually think that is promising given how the US sprint world and the big sponsors have treated athletes. Richardson is not going to be anyone's product. And that is a good thing.

ETH is 29, Jackson is 27 and Fraser-Pryce is 34. At the next OGs, Richardson will be coming into the best years of her career while the top three from 2020 will just be trying to hold on to their form. Not saying that Richardson blows them away. But all the talk about whether she can beat ETH etc. presumes that time will stand still. And it does not, especially for top sprinters who have been at it for over a decade.

As noted above, Sha'Carri leaves time in the blocks. It is hard to imagine much improvement on her top end speed. But with an improved start, she is a medal contender at 2022 WCs and a medal favorite in 2024.

Her race at Pre was dismal. She couldn't get out of the blocks, had dead legs and no big acceleration to the tape like she usually has. She was either out of shape (most likely) or just couldn't deal with the pressure (not likely as she was unstoppable at USAs). We probably will never know as she is not the kind of sprinter who is going to tell everyone that her training wasn't 100% due to injury or the stress of the doping ban or whatever. I suspect an injury given that she has not raced since.