A gold medal awaits at the end of Sha'Carey Richardson's road to redemption.
After missing out on a spot in the Tokyo Olympics due to a disqualification in 2021, the track and field star is fast-tracking his path to securing a spot on the U.S. team for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“What does it mean to go to Paris? It literally makes all of the training, the support, the naysayers worth it,” Richardson told NBC. “It pays off when you realize you made the Olympic team.”
The Dallas native won the 100m in the qualifying round and earned a spot on the 2021 Olympic team, but then tested positive for THC, the chemical found in marijuana, and was banned for a month, missing out on the sport's biggest stage at the Tokyo Olympics.
The Olympics went on without her.
She returned to the track at the 2021 Prefontaine Classic, finishing in ninth place, as she regained her Olympic form nearly two years later and officially began her revenge tour.
She won the 100 meters at the USA Track and Field Championships in 10.82 seconds, then won the 100 meters at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest to claim the title of fastest woman in the world, and opened her Olympic year by winning the Prefontaine Classic in 10.83 seconds.
“I'm better, I'm stronger, I'm smarter,” Richardson said. “I just find myself in a different position that I've never been in my life before.”
It may soon take the 24-year-old to a place she has never been before: the Olympics and to the top of the podium.
Richardson is scheduled to compete in her first Olympic qualifier on June 21 in Eugene, Oregon.
If she qualifies for the Olympics, she will be aiming to become the first American woman to win gold in the 100 meters since Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988.
Now, Richardson is back on track, literally and figuratively, and credits her family with setting her on the path to Paris.
“My family is special to me because they knew me and supported me and were there for me before I even knew who I was going to be,” Richardson said. “They knew who I was going to be before I even had any idea.”
Being an Olympic athlete requires a lot of training and eating right to fuel that training. But like most of us, Olympic athletes all have their cheat foods that they sometimes opt for to get calories in the wrong way.
