That is a part of Slate’s 2024 Olympics protection. Learn extra right here.
On Saturday, on the Stade de France in Paris, the stage was all set for a type of traditional Olympics redemption tales. After lacking the Tokyo Video games solely attributable to a constructive drug take a look at and a controversial suspension, American sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson was set to make her Olympics debut within the 100-meter sprint—and probably declare the gold medal that she didn’t get an opportunity to win three years in the past. In June, on the U.S. Olympic Trials, Richardson ran the 100-meter sprint in 10.71 seconds—the quickest time that any lady anyplace had posted this 12 months. Going into Paris, she was the odds-on favourite to win 100-meter gold.
After which … she didn’t. In a last that featured not one of the three Jamaican sprinters who took the rostrum in Tokyo, Richardson got here in second to Julien Alfred, from St. Lucia, a small Caribbean nation that, till immediately, had by no means received an Olympic medal in something. Richardson appeared to get out of the blocks slowly, and initially lagged behind a lot of the sphere. She kicked it into gear midway by means of and recovered in time to assert the silver medal. However there was no catching Alfred, who led for a lot of the race and crossed the end line a stride and a half earlier than anybody else.
Though Alfred has been operating rather well this 12 months—the ten.78-second 100-meter sprint she ran in June was, earlier than Saturday, the third-fastest girls’s time logged in 2024—her Olympic gold nonetheless counts as an upset. For Richardson and her followers, in the meantime, her silver medal certainly counts as a disappointment. However solely a idiot or a troll would name her efficiency a failure.
The previous 5 years of Richardson’s life have been the stuff of biopics. In 2019, as a university freshman, she broke the collegiate report within the 100-meter sprint, clocking a time of 10.75 seconds—the quickest 100-meter sprint that any lady anyplace had run in two years. However, as loads of folks famous on the time, Richardson’s time would have been even sooner had she not begun celebrating her victory earlier than crossing the end line. The screenwriter who pens the eventual Sha’Carri Richardson film will probably use this incident as a little bit of thematic foreshadowing: a spectacular athlete who can solely be slowed by her personal decisions.
In 2021, on the U.S. Olympic Trials, Richardson received the 100-meter sprint with a time of 10.86 seconds. She was all set to go to Tokyo—after which … she didn’t. After testing constructive for marijuana utilization, Richardson was hit with a one-month suspension from the U.S. Anti-Doping Company that might finish days after the Tokyo Olympics started. In contrast to another Olympic contenders who’ve failed pre-Video games drug assessments, Richardson selected to not enchantment her suspension. She stayed residence and watched in 2021 as Jamaica swept the ladies’s 100-meter podium.
In the event you have been listening to the Olympics in 2021, you then’ll certainly keep in mind that Richardson’s suspension made lots of people very offended—and never with out motive. Marijuana is hardly a performance-enhancing drug, which raised questions on why the USADA was testing for it in any respect. What’s extra, marijuana is authorized in lots of American states—together with Oregon, the state through which Richardson used it. Whereas the monitor star admitted to utilizing marijuana in the course of the Olympic Trials, she stated that she had accomplished so after studying that her organic mom had lately died. (Richardson was raised by her grandmother and her aunt.)
“I wish to take accountability for my actions. … I’m not in search of an excuse,” Richardson stated on the time, whilst numerous Twitter moralists appeared to take self-righteous pleasure in her absence. However she additionally made clear that the suspension was only a pace bump in her Olympics journey. “This would be the final time the Olympics don’t see Sha’Carri Richardson,” she stated. “I’ve loads of Video games left in me to compete in, and I’ve loads of expertise that backs me up.”
The sprinter has spent a lot of the previous three years residing as much as her personal prediction. In 2023, she received the world championship within the 100-meter sprint with a time of 10.65 seconds. This June, on the U.S. Olympic Trials, she completed first within the 100-meter sprint as soon as once more, besting her 2021 mark by 0.15 of a second and punching her ticket to Paris with that 12 months’s quickest time of 10.71. She entered Saturday as each the statistical and the sentimental favourite for Olympic gold.
The truth that she completed simply wanting that final result doesn’t outline Richardson both as an individual or an athlete—and it actually doesn’t imply that she failed. Richardson’s eight rivals on Saturday won’t have been favored to win, however additionally they weren’t eight random slobs who’d been pulled out of the stands. They’re eight of the quickest girls on the earth. On any given day, any single one in all them is able to profitable any race that they enter. Sure, Richardson is exceptionally quick, and is having a fantastic 12 months—however irrespective of how briskly you might be, generally you simply get crushed.
Julien Alfred, Saturday’s victor, has crushed Richardson earlier than. She comes from St. Lucia, which boasts a inhabitants of about 180,000 folks—or roughly the identical inhabitants as Chattanooga, Tennessee. The island nation is hardly a global sporting powerhouse—which makes Alfred’s gold not simply stunning, however significant, in a means that’s arduous for Individuals to grasp. Saturday’s 100-meter sprint last was proven on an enormous out of doors display in St. Lucia, and when Alfred crossed the end line, the gang erupted as if they’d all simply received the lottery. At that second, it felt like Alfred’s victory wasn’t simply Alfred’s victory—it was all of St. Lucia’s victory.
In some fictionalized cinematic model of Richardson’s story, she would have run away with the gold in Paris. However actual life not often resolves as neatly as the flicks do—and, because it seems, Alfred’s story is a reasonably good one, too. As for Richardson, nicely, she’s 24 years outdated and operating in addition to she ever has, and she is going to nonetheless be in her prime when the Los Angeles Video games kick off in 2028. Whereas her silver medal on Saturday would possibly strike some as a disappointment, it isn’t a tragedy, it isn’t a failure, and it nearly actually isn’t the tip of her Olympic story. She’s bought 4 extra years now to work on writing her splendid ending.