Sha’Carri Richardson caps comeback with 100-meter gold
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY » Track, and fame, can be brutal games. Nobody felt that more over the past two years than American sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson.
On a sultry Monday night half a world away from where her problems began, the 23-year-old earned a gold medal at world championships in the biggest 100-meter race this side of the Olympics.
Her victory, in 10.65 seconds over Jamaicans Shericka Jackson and five-time world champion ShellyAnn Fraser-Pryce, capped a comeback two years in the making and made good on the mantra she’s been reciting all year — and repeated yet again after her latest victory: “I’m not back. I’m better.”
Two summers ago after Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, Richardson’s road to the Tokyo Games was roadblocked by a positive test for marijuana. Her name turned into a litmus test in a wideranging debate about race, fairness, the often-impenetrable anti-doping rulebook and, ultimately, about the sometimes razor-thin line between right and wrong.
Richardson said she soaked it all in, surrounded herself with supporters, tried to drown out the rest.
“I would say ‘never give up,’” she said when asked what message this victory sent. “Never allow media, never allow outsiders, never allow anything but yourself and your faith define who you are. I would say ‘Always fight. No matter what, fight.’”
For this victory, in a field
featuring four of the eight fastest sprinters in history, she fought.
She fought when the vagaries of the track rulebook placed her in the socalled “Semifinal of Death,” paired against Jackson and Marie-Josée Ta Lou, who came in ranked fifth and eighth all-time, in a race where only the top two finishers were guaranteed spots in the final.
In that semifinal, Richardson got off to a wretched start and had to rally from seventh to finish third in 10.84. Her time was the fastest among all non-qualifiers, so she made it to the final.
A mere 70 minutes later, she was lining up on the edge of the track in Lane 9 for the gold-medal sprint, as tough a spot as there is because there’s no way to feel how the top contenders — or anyone, really — is doing.
It made no difference. Even though she had the third-slowest start in the field, nobody got too far ahead. In the end, it was a race between her and Jackson.
Jackson crossed and, unable to track what Richardson was doing so far on the outside, looked up to the scoreboard as though she might have won.
Richardson beat her by .07 seconds, Fraser-Pryce by .12 and Ta Lou by .16. The 10.65 was a meet record — Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 35-year-old world record of 10.49 still stands — and matched Jackson for the best time in the world this year.
“All the heavy hitters were going to bring their ‘A’ game, so it helped me pull out my best ‘A’ game, as well,” Richardson said. “I’m next to living legends. It feels remarkable.”
Teary Lyles relishes gold in 100
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY » All the brashness and bravado melted away when the gold medal finally went around Noah Lyles’ neck Monday night at the world championships.
The 100-meter winner doubled over and broke into tears at the ceremony, held the day after he defied the experts and earned the title “World’s Fastest Man” with a victory in what has traditionally been his secondbest race.
After Lyles composed himself, he stood up and took a deep bow to the crowd amassed at the medals plaza set up outside the stadium.
The entire moment has hit him quicker than he ever anticipated. Much quicker than winning his back-toback world 200 titles.
“I’m trying to get the right words — this is the fastest medal that’s sunk in the quickest,” Lyles said. “This one, it’s definitely like, ‘Title of fastest man of the world. Title of the 100-meter champion. Running the worldleading time. Grabbing the medal.’ That is the one I’ve been reaching for, for so long — and I got it.”
Lyles finished the race Sunday night in 9.83 seconds to edge Letsile Tebogo, the 20-year-old from Botswana, and bronze medalist Zharnel Hughes of Britain.
Tebogo and Hughes were with Lyles on the medal stand and comforted him when he broke down. Lyles has been open and honest about the mental health struggles he’s endured, especially in the post-COVID atmosphere of the Tokyo Olympics.
“(My mental health has) definitely been growing stronger and stronger since 2021,” Lyles said. “Every year I feel that I’ve been able to continuously add on to layers of security, I guess you could call it, or just good health. It’s really put a perspective on how I’ve been able to view things.”