Paris Olympics: Saint Lucia’s Julien Alfred upsets Sha’Carri Richardson in women’s 100 meters

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PARIS — Three years after testing positive for marijuana and allowing an Olympic berth to slip through her grasp, Sha’Carri Richardson arrived in Paris on the cusp of completing the sort of redemptive arc typically found in a Hollywood script.

A journey that started with the despair of missing the chance to compete in Tokyo seemed destined to end with a delirious celebration on Stade de France’s distinctive purple track.

What happened Saturday was a reminder that in real life there are rarely fairytale endings. Richardson finished second behind Saint Lucia’s Julien Alfred.

Alfred, a three-time NCAA Division I champion at the University of Texas, won in a time of 10.72 to Richardson’s 10.87. American Melissa Jefferson took bronze (10.92).

For Saint Lucia, it’s the first Olympic medal of any kind.

The time that Richardson ran was more than .20 shy of her career best of 10.65 seconds, not that the time was what mattered. All that mattered to Richardson was that she crossed the finish line behind Alfred.

As one of the most visible athletes of the Paris Olympics, Richardson faced immense pressure to live up to her status as pre-race favorite and win gold. Her confident smile and trademark acrylic nails have been unavoidable in the U.S. for months, between NBC’s promotional blitz, a Vogue cover shoot and commercials for Olay, Nike, Sprite, Oikos and PowerAde.

Only a handful of women around the world have the speed to challenge an in-form Richardson, and three of them were not on the startling line alongside her Saturday night.

An Achilles injury has sidelined Elaine Thompson-Herah for most of this season. Shericka Jackson, another Jamaican superstar, pulled up with a calf injury during a July tuneup race and then decided to focus only on the 200 in Paris. Three-time Olympic gold medalist Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce of Jamaica then stunningly scratched before Saturday’s semifinals just one day after running the second-fastest time in the prelims.

There’s nothing less complicated in sports than the 100 meters, yet Richardson’s path to the Stade de France finish line was anything but simple. In the past three years, she has gone through more eras than Taylor Swift, from “That girl,” to suspended and suffering, to mad at the world, to “I’m not back, I’m better.”

In her first race back from suspension, in August 2021, Richardson lined up against many of the same women she’d have seen in an Olympic final had she been in Tokyo. It was her chance to prove that her presence would have prevented a Jamaican sweep.

Richardson finished last that day, not only behind all three Jamaican medalists but also behind the five other competitors. Afterward, she spoke directly to her haters in a defiant trackside interview with NBC’s Lewis Johnson.

“Count me out if you want to,” she said. “Talk all the s— you want. Because I’m here to stay. I’m not done. I’m the sixth-fastest woman in this game ever. Can’t nobody ever take that from me.”

Social media skirmishes and other controversies for awhile made Richardson one of the most polarizing athletes in track and field. At the 2022 USA National Championships, Richardson called out reporters in attendance for allegedly disrespecting her and other athletes. She also made the mistake of criticizing some of her Jamaican rivals on X and drew the wrath of that country’s vocal fanbase.

The Richardson of that era bears little resemblance to the one that much of America has gotten reacquainted with this summer. She has recommitted to her training, taken extended breaks from social media and stopped lashing out so often at her perceived critics. Even many Jamaican fans find her easier to support.

These days, Richardson’s sole comment on her past is a five-word mantra that she has repeated over and over for the past year: “I’m not back, I’m better.” She has since proven that on the track, winning World Championships gold in the 100 meters from Lane 9 and then following that by qualifying for Paris with the fastest time in the world so far this year.

“In the past three years, I’ve grown just a better understanding of myself,” Richardson said earlier this summer at U.S. Olympic Trials. “A deeper respect and appreciation for my gift that I have in the sport and as well as my responsibility to the people that believe in and support me. I feel like all of those components have helped me grow and will continue to help me grow.”

Richardson arrived in Paris in mid-July with her coach Dennis Mitchell and training partners Twanisha Terry and Melissa Jefferson. For the three sprinters, experiencing their first Olympics together has only made it more rewarding.

“When one of us is down, the other two may be up,” Terry said. “It’s a great feeling to have that moral support.”

Terry said that Mitchell’s pre-race advice to his trio of sprinters was “when you go out there, just look down the track. Stay focused. Don’t look up and try to find people.”

Richardson stared down the track and saw a gold medal just a single 100-meter sprint away. Somehow, someway, it slipped away.