Sha’Carri Richardson Dominates 100 Meters at 2024 US Olympic Trials
Richardson ran 10.71 and went 1-2-3 with training partners Melissa Jefferson & TeeTee Terry
By Jonathan GaultEUGENE, Ore. — Sha’Carri Richardson closed the second night of action at the 2024 US Olympic Trials at Hayward Field by blitzing the women’s 100-meter field and winning her second straight national title in a world-leading 10.71 seconds. 2022 US champion Melissa Jefferson (10.80) and TeeTee Terry (10.89), who train with Richardson in Florida, grabbed the other two Olympic spots in second and third, making it a sweep for coach Dennis Mitchell‘s Star Athletics group.
Race Video
Six weeks out from the Olympic 100-meter final in Paris on August 3, Richardson is the clear favorite for gold in one of the Games’ marquee events, seeking to win a title that an American woman has not claimed since Gail Devers won in Atlanta in 1996. Three years ago, Richardson won the US Olympic Trials on the same track she lit on fire tonight, but was stripped of her title and disqualified from the results two weeks later after her post-race drug test revealed the presence of marijuana. Richardson said she had learned of the death of her biological mother from a reporter a week before the Trials and said she used marijuana before the race as a way to cope with the stress. The US Anti-Doping Agency handed Richardson a one-month ban, the minimum prescribed by the rules, but it cost her a spot at the Tokyo Olympics, where she would have been among the medal favorites.
Kevin Morris photo
Richardson showed flashes of her old form in 2022, but she failed to make it out of the first round at the US championships and failed to qualify for the World Championship, held that year in the United States. She ended that season by finishing dead-last in the Diamond League final in Zurich in 11.13.
World Champion in 2023
2023 could hardly have been more different. Touting her season-long slogan of “I’m not back, I’m better,” Richardson dominated the circuit, winning five of her seven 100-meter races and claiming her first official US title. She capped the year by winning the world title in Budapest in a championship record of 10.65, taking down Jamaican star Shericka Jackson and her compatriot Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the defending champion and greatest female 100-meter runner of all time.
That ramped up the spotlight on Richardson entering the Olympic year, and her face has been everywhere in 2024 after signing national ad campaigns with no fewer than seven major brands, including Sprite, Olay, and Beats by Dre. NBC has already anointed her an Olympic darling, the woman to end America’s 100-meter gold drought in an event the Jamaicans have owned at the Olympics for most of Richardson’s life.
Unlike last year, when she raced six times before the Olympic Trials, including meets in Botswana, Kenya, and Qatar, Richardson raced just three times before this meet. The first two were underwhelming 200-meter races in China in April, where Richardson won neither and ran 22.99 and 23.11, more than a second off her 21.92 pb.
But Richardson calmed any doubts by running 10.83 in her 100-meter opener at the Prefontaine Classic on May 25, and breezed through the rounds at the Trials despite poor starts in the prelims and semifinal. Now, after her 10.71 in the final, Richardson finally has the opportunity to compete on the sport’s grandest stage in Paris in August.
This was a quick race recap. We have another article on Sha’Carris win and what it means here:After Winning US Olympic Trials, Sha’Carri Richardson Heads to Paris With New Perspective There is more to the Sha’Carri Richardson of 2024 than greatness and joy. There is growth, there is understanding, there is appreciation. “I’ve grown [into] a better understanding of myself, a deeper respect and appreciation for my gift that I have in the sport,” Richardson said.
Post-race press conference
