“I“Ma Bentley,” Sha’Carri Richardson says proudly at one point in Sprint, the fly-on-the-wall Netflix series that follows some of the world’s top racing stars. “Fast, expensive … fancy.” It shows how little she knows about cars.
Bentleys are all about subtlety. Their amenities are unobtrusive. Their speed is understated. They are grand but never ostentatious. Richardson? She’s a Lamborghini: not only fast but abrupt, while also loud and ready to get out of hand. But this latest edition of the Richardson is much better suited to her Olympic debut on Friday, a kind of rematch.
One of the most recognizable athletes on the planet, the 24-year-old Richardson has somehow managed to stay less in the spotlight than ever. Sure, she still rocks the flashy body ink and acrylic nails—a striking nod to legendary American sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner—but the brightly colored wigs that were long her trademark have been ditched in favor of more natural styles. Meanwhile, she’s continued to feature prominently in NBC’s U.S. TV promotional blitz and in ads for Olay and Oikos.
For those who’ve forgotten Richardson’s story until now, it’s only been three years since Richardson completed perhaps the most rapid rise and fall in American sports history. Shortly after winning the 100m at the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials, Richardson tested positive for THC, the key ingredient in cannabis—which, while legal in Oregon, has been banned for the Olympics since 1999.
Richardson said she took the drug to manage the grinding stress of qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics while grieving the death of her biological mother — news, she said, that was told to her in an interview before the race. Family is a delicate matter for Richardson. She has reportedly never claimed to have a relationship with either her mother or her father. In Sprint, the Netflix series, Richardson’s aunt Shayaria is credited as “Sha’Carri’s motherAfter her golden heat at the 2021 U.S. trials, Richardson went straight to her grandmother Betty Harp — who she credits in Vogue for “making me the person I am.”
In an attempt to limit the damage following the 2021 US lawsuits, Richardson made an appearance on NBC’s Today Show and showed how ill-equipped her PR staff was for the task. They didn’t even bother to change the battery in a beeping smoke detector in Richardson’s home, let alone film her properly for the remote interview, which made her look as callow as the rest of us on Zoom calls. They also had her stand for the entire interview, causing her to fidget with her posture and hair, distracting viewers from the pain in her voice as she faced a month-long suspension as the Games approached.
Furthermore, she dismissed the positive test as not such a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and in the third person no less. “When it comes to Sha’Carri Richardson, it was never a steroid. It will never be a steroid associated with the name Sha’Carri Richardson,” she said. “The charge and the situation was marijuana. I’m not encouraging anybody to do it. I’m not saying, Oh, don’t do it or something like that. But if you choose to do things on your own time [like that] You just have to know the consequences or be aware of them, or find other ways to deal with them.”
A year after that interview, Richardson would write on Twitter, “I wish I never did this.”
Richardson’s need to keep talking only made it easier for critics to pick her apart for her acting.ghetto“and in a clinch with the reporters that cover herand it was easier for USA Track and Field to leave her out of the roster for the 4x100m Olympic relay in Tokyo — even though her suspension would have expired in time. For Black American fans familiar with the IOC’s kangaroo courts and the U.S.’s relaxed attitude toward marijuana use, Richardson became yet another symbol of systemic injustice — and Richardson herself was soon accusing the IOC of racial discrimination.
But Richardson’s biggest misstep was probably poking the biggest bear in track and field: the Jamaican track and field team, fresh off their historic 100m podium exit at the Tokyo Games. When Richardson finally met them at the 2021 Diamond League’s Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, the same arena where she’d qualified for Tokyo, all she could do was watch them barrel past on their way to a final finish (not that it stopped her from cursing). Her results didn’t improve much from there.
But in 2023, Richardson returned a changed woman, taking long (for her) breaks from social media to dedicate herself to her training again. She opened the season by posting the fourth-fastest time in the women’s 100 meters (helped in part by a strong tailwind) to win the Miramar Invitational. A month later in Doha, she set a meet record in the 100 meters to clinch her first Diamond League crown. Later that summer, at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Richardson claimed her first gold medal in the 100 meters and 4×100 meters. Over the past 18 months, Richardson has not only been one of the most consistent elite athletes on the track; she’s added the 200 meters to her arsenal and proved she can be just as dangerous at twice her usual distance, despite her tendency to get off to a slow start.
While she narrowly missed qualifying for the Paris Olympics in the 200m, where American Gabby Thomas is the queen, Richardson comfortably won the 100m at the U.S. Olympic Trials this summer in a world-record-breaking time. But what’s really been striking is how effortlessly she seems to go from putting on her sports face and beating up her rivals to taking them down and being friendly and supportive again. She’s made herself so easy to cheer for that even Jamaican fans who once gloried in her arrogant collapse are now giving her props.
But some of that newfound respect may be based on fear: Jamaican Olympic 100-meter champion Elaine Thompson-Herah was pulled from the Games with an Achilles tendon injury that NBC analyst Ato Boldon believes her career will end. Shericka Jackson, who has only improved since her bronze finish in the 100m in Tokyo, withdrew from the 100m in Paris on Wednesday to focus on the 200m.
That leaves Richardson as the overwhelming favorite for this weekend’s final. “Over the last three years, I’ve come to understand myself better, to respect and appreciate my gift in the sport, and also to understand my responsibility to the people who believe in me and support me,” Richardson told reporters after bagging her ticket to Paris. There’s a lot to like about this new and improved model.