By David Wilfong
NDG Contributing Writer
The world of athletics is abuzz with athletes trying to make their way onto Olympic rosters.
While there is a virtual sea of events athletes can qualify for, track and field remains one of the bedrocks of the global event, and a young woman from Dallas secured her ticket to Tokyo in a big way.
It has been a few years Sha’Carri Richardson burned up the high school tracks around the DFW area competing for Dallas Carter. From here she went on to stand out among the runners at LSU.
This past week she was in Eugene, Ore. to prove her worth in representing the U.S. in the 100-meter sprint.
She did so, in resounding fashion.
All eyes were on Richardson, with her fiery hair and equally explosive on-track personality. When the starting gun sounded, Richardson did not disappoint.
She blew through the preliminary heats, with a 10.64-second semifinal run where she had enough of a lead to confidently point to the time clock before she even reached the finish line.
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Richardson’s acceleration was on full display on the final race. Not as quick from the blocks as some of the other more seasoned veterans on the track, Richardson powered from the middle of the pack to the finish line to take the top spot. This was the first U.S. title for Richardson.
Richardson’s training partner Javianne Oliver took second place in the race with a time of 10.99, and the 2019 U.S. champion, Teahna Daniels of Austin finished third to round out the Olympic representatives with a time of 11.03.
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Richardson then pulled at the heartstrings of the televised audience when, after a few brief congratulatory hugs from the other top finsihers, she bolted from the track and into the stands. Her energy stayed at top level until she found her family’s seats where she collapsed into her grandmother’s arms.
In a post-race interview afterward, Richardson revealed that she had just lost her biological mother, and that her family is what had sustained her through all her challenges leading up to the title.
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“Nobody knows what I go through,” Richardson told NBS cameras after the race. “Everybody has struggles, and I understand that. But y’all see me on this track, and y’all see the poker face I put on. But nobody but them and my coach know what I go through on a day to day basis and I’m highly grateful for them. Without them, there would be no me.
“Without my grandmother, there would be no Sha’Carri Richardson, so my family is my everything; my everything until the day I’m done.”
There are many competitions left in many sports to determine the athletes which will make up the U.S. Olympic team in Tokyo, but one of the stars has already begun to shine.
