Sha’Carri is not a victim
SHE WILL not be in the Olympic 100 metres finals. Young, Orville Taylor with no intention to use a banned substance, this innocent, and promising athlete had earlier missed out on her first chance to make a senior team and a place in the women’s 100 metres team. If you think I am talking about American sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson, then you are probably using the same stuff she is.
Look! Richardson used marijuana, knowing that it is a prohibited substance and that it could have given her a longer ban. It does not matter whether she or her supporters think that cannabis is an innocuous drug that does not enhance performance. It might not, but marijuana certainly increases one’s tolerance for pain, thus potentially allowing for harder workouts and better recovery. Older martial artists are reputed to have used it in training to slow down their bodies so that they are super-fast when it is out of their system. In any event, is there any of these advocates who would be comfortable with a discus, hammer, or javelin thrower competing under the influence of the ‘Ishens’?
Just imagine a pole vaulter or vertical jumper trying to get higher than the weed made them. Would you trust a sprinter, floating marijuana, which makes her calmer than the other runners and unfazed by the starter’s gun but is so fast that she catches them at 70 metres and spikes someone because she is too stoned to run straight? Imagine a hurdler, kicking and tripping over his and others’ hurdles.
Richardson lit up with impunity with full knowledge that there would be consequences.
NO RESPECT
She is not a victim. She has no respect or regard for all the other youngsters who are looking up to her. Getting a ban, which correlates with her height, is a slap on the wrist. Furthermore, there cannot be any racism or sexism because most of the other sprinters, who obey the rules, are black.
Her sexuality is of little consequence. However, thousands of young black, straight, queer, and otherwise athletes need clean role models. Black girls in the USA are still facing teen pregnancies, drug convictions, and other consequences from poor singleinstance choices. Competing in the same Olympics as legend mothers, Alison Felix and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, she has a nerve, and all who make light of her action are disingenuous and cannot mean her any good. My feelings were the very same when Miami Dolphins’ running back Ricky Williams smoked his way out of the team when he was needed. By the way, where were the defenders when Felix was being discriminated against and marginalised because she did what most women naturally do, the one thing that keeps humanity surviving: getting pregnant.
Anyway, the young person I am speaking of in the first paragraph is none other than Briana Williams. She chose the harder path to the World Championships in 2019, in competing for only one likely space, on the Jamaican team. Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson Herah are the only active athletes who have run 10.71 or faster, and they have run multiple 10.7s both locally and internationally.
CHOSEN EASIER PATH
A born American (of Jamaican parentage), Williams could have chosen the easier path. After all, her times leading up to July 2019 were faster than Morolake Akinosun, and on form, she was better than all four American runners entered. Indeed, Williams’ replacement, Jonielle Smith, who she convincingly beat in the Jamaican Trials, finished ahead of the last-placed, outclassed American Teahna Daniels in Doha.
Williams tested positive for an unlabelled substance, which was hidden in an over-the-counter medication she declared she had taken for a cold. With the same timeline and approach by the American authorities, she would have been in their 4x100 team and had her first senior global medal.
For the record, Richardson has yet to prove to the world that she or any current American 100 metres sprinter can win an individual medal this year. True, she has run 10.7s twice this year and once before, but apart from those American tracks, especially Hayward Field, Oregon, being fast, she still has not made any impression outside of the USA.
True, she is clearly a talent, but Shelly, Elaine, and Shericka Jackson, with a killer 400 metres strength finish, is more than she can stomach after three rounds, where she has to run her heart out.
Let this sink in: Even if her lane were taken from the faster Hayward Field track, the 10.86 she ran in the American finals would have been good for only fourth in Kingston. On the other hand, Williams would have placed at least third in the American trials.
Richardson is our daughter, and good parents correct and guide our children when they err. We don’t make excuses and shift goalposts.
The Olympics starts this weekend, but there will be no sprint gold for American women. Remember this prediction.