Sha’Carri and the Budapest dream

THE DOHA Diamond League 100 metres and the 200 she ran in Kenya yesterday proved something we already know: Sha’Carri Richardson is fast.

However, there are still questions about her championship pedigree, especially with the starting line in Budapest for the World Athletics Championships this August looming large.

We already knew she was fast. In 2019, she sped to the NCAA 100-metre title running for LSU, clocking a world under-20 record of 10.75 seconds. In 2021, she fired off three sub-10.8-second times, topped by a personal best of 10.72. To put the cherry on top, she won the US Olympic Trials. Last year, she posted a season’s best of 10.85 seconds.

The flip side is that Richardson is yet to toe the line in a major championship.

In 2019, perhaps dizzied by turning professional, she missed the US team with a tepid eighth-place finish at the National Championships. She came back to win those Nationals in 2021 but tripped on her way to the Olympics because of a marijuana doping dq.

Last year, when earth’s mightiest athletes targeted the World Championships in Eugene, Richardson was unable to reach the 100 or 200 final at the US Nationals. So, despite her undeniable speed, she has never run at the Olympics or the Worlds.

RECOVERED FROM PERSONAL PROBLEMS

This year, she seems to have recovered from the personal troubles that plagued her in the past. In 2021, she lost her birth mother and in 2022, she suffered through well-publicised romantic difficulties. Anyone who has endured those hardships will understand.

In Doha, she finished fast to beat Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson, 10.76 to 10.85 seconds, and her post-race comments indicate that Richardson has matured since those tough days. “I’m so blessed and thankful, I feel at peace,” she told reporters at trackside.

To get to Budapest, she will have to duel with her US compatriots, and when that is done, she will then meet the best in the world at their best. Among them will certainly be five-time winner Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who qualifies with the defending champion’s wild card.

Fraser-Pryce, Jackson, who wasn’t quite as fluent in Doha as she was when she eased to a time of 10.82 seconds in Kingston last month, and Elaine Thompson Herah went 1-2-3 at last year’s World Championships.

With Thompson Herah leading Fraser-Pryce and Jackson home, this brilliant trio took all the medals in the 2021 Olympic Games final as well, so their championship mettle is proven. However, this more settled version of Sha’Carri Richardson will be a contender if she reaches Budapest.

So far in her track career, her season’s bests have come before the big medals are handed out: 10.75 on June 6 in 2019, 10.72 on April 10 in 2021, and 10.85 on June 12 last year.

Only time will tell if this is the season when the colourful American gets it right.