(Eugene) 100m queen Sha’Carri Richardson focuses attention on the US Olympic trials for Paris-2024, which begin Friday in Eugene, Oregon, where a positive test for marijuana had deprived her of the Tokyo Games in 2021.
Sha’Carri Richardson (24 years old) has scores to settle with Eugene, a small university town in Oregon, the beating heart of “US” athletics, where the sprinter has experienced some joys, but above all a lot of sorrows since her beginnings careers.
In 2021, the flamboyant athlete with colorful hair and endless nails set the track on fire during the Olympic selections, before being disqualified and deprived of the Tokyo Games for testing positive for marijuana. Richardson had learned of the death of her biological mother a week earlier, plunging her into an abyss of suffering, which she had tried to soothe.
The beginning of a small descent into hell, between dubious declarations, excesses on social networks and battle around a toxic relationship with his ex-girlfriend, before failing to qualify for the 2022 Worlds, contested in… Eugene .
“At the time of my suspension, I was not doing well at all, I was young, I had run the final drunk on Hennessy (a brand of cognac, Editor’s note),” she explained in December 2022 on her vlog.
“There are times in life when I collapse because I can no longer bear everything that happens to me. Since my suspension, people see me in my flesh, raw, they see my human side,” added the Dallas native who had a difficult childhood, raised with her sister by her grandmother, her mother proving incapable of take care of them.
“This is the last time that the Olympic Games are held without Sha’Carri Richardson, and it is the last time that the United States returns without the gold medal” in the 100m, she warned in 2021.
Three years later, Richardson has the opportunity to keep her promise and close this painful chapter, she who likes to see the “circles of life”, returns to square one, like when the track at her high school in Dallas was renamed in his honor last November, years after he revealed his unique talent there.
In order to qualify for the Paris Games (July 26–August 11), she must finish in the top three of the ruthless American selections, with a first round played on Friday, then a semi and a final on Saturday.
A formality a priori for the one who became world champion in the 100m last summer in Budapest in 10 sec 65, making her the 5th fastest woman in history, before taking on a new dimension outside the track by signing sponsorship contracts with brands of watches, headphones, phones, drinks and cosmetics, backed by his 3 million followers on Instagram.
A single 100 m cannon in 10 sec 83 was enough this season, once again in the setting of Hayward field in Eugene at the end of May, to recall the status and the new consistency in excellence of the athlete trained in Florida by the ex-sprinter Dennis Mitchell.
Another attraction of the weekend, the triple world champion (100, 200 and 4×100 m) Noah Lyles is chasing a qualification on the straight line (heats on Saturday, semi-finals and final on Sunday), he who dreams of a quadruple at the Olympics with the 4x400m relay additionally.
Lyles faces fierce competition, as usual, with Fred Kerley (2022 world champion), Christian Coleman (2019 world champion), Kenny Bednarek (Olympic 200m runner-up) and Ronnie Baker (Olympic finalist in 2021), but without injured Trayvon Bromell.
The “trials” continue until June 30, with among others Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who is focusing on the defense of her Olympic title in the 400m hurdles, Grant Holloway’s 110m hurdles, the 200m, and the Ryan Crouser weight.
