BREAKING NEWS: Happy Birthday To Sha’carri Richardson On His 28th Birthday.
Sha’Carri Richardson just won her first Olympic gold medal. On August 9, the sprinter the U.S. women’s track and field team to victory in the 4×100 relay at the with a time of 41.78 seconds.
Following Melissa Jefferson, Melissa Jefferson, and Gabby Thomas, Richardson anchored the team to gold, finishing the last stretch of the race with a 10.09-second leg. Despite the rain, Richardson surged past her competitors, beating Great Britain’s Daryll Neita by just 0.07 seconds. Great Britain came in second place, winning the silver, while Germany took home the bronze.
The victory marks 24-year-old Richardson’s second Olympic medal. She secured silver in the women’s 100-meter race on August 3 with a time of 10.87 seconds—0.22 seconds shy of her personal best. At the 2023 World Athletics Championships, Richardson set a new world record of 10.65 seconds and earned herself the title of “fastest woman in the world.”
While her Olympic dreams were put on hold after being disqualified from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics due to a failed drug test, Richardson has made quite the comeback and is leaving the Paris Games with two Olympic medals under her belt.
Her success continued at the 2023 World Athletics Championships that August. She won the 100-meter sprint with a championship record time of 10.65 seconds, took third place in the 200-meter sprint, and anchored the women’s 4x100m relay for another first place win.
“I feel amazing,” Richardson told Eurosport. “I feel like hard work pays off. I’ve been dedicating myself. I’ve been keeping my faith strong this season and just believing and knowing whatever you practice is what you put forward, and I’m grateful.”
Her win in the 100-meter sprint earned her the title for the current “fastest woman in the world.” Elsewhere, Richardson was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list for 2024.
2024 Olympics
Richardson officially completed her comeback at the U.S. Olympic Team Track and Field Trials in June 2024 by winning the 100-meter dash in 10.71 seconds to earn a spot on Team USA for the Paris Summer Olympics. Recording the fastest time in the world of the year, she immediately became the favorite to win gold in the event during the Games. Richardson was also expected to qualify for the 200-meter dash as part of the American squad, but one week later, she finished fourth and missed the chance to compete in the race in Paris.
Come August, Richardson won her heat race in the women’s 100-meter before placing second in her semi-final heat behind St. Lucia’s Julien Alfred, foreshadowing the final race to come. Richardson got a slow start off the line as Alfred shot out like lightening. The American sprinter made up ground but ultimately couldn’t overtake Alfred, who took gold and won the race by 0.15 seconds, as Richardson earned silver—her first Olympic medal.
The Texas native then won her first gold medal after steering Team USA to victory in the women’s 4×100-meter relay with a time of 41.78 seconds. Richardson anchored the team, finishing the last stretch of the race with a 10.09-second leg.
Fashion Icon
Richardson is known for her unique personal style and beauty aesthetic. Her bold fashion choices on the track have included catsuits and other eye-catching racing attire. Her personal style has been compared to fellow sprinter Florence Joyner, who won five Olympic medals in the 1980s.
“I really just wanted people to know that you can be yourself,” she told NBC following a race in 2022. “That means you wanna be sexy, you wanna be cute, you wanna express yourself in ways that nobody has before? Don’t let that stop you.”
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