Olympic Women’s 100m: Is This Sha’Carri Richardson’s Moment?

Few countries have dominated an event as thoroughly over the last four Olympics as Jamaica has in the women’s 100 meters. During that span, Jamaican women have won 10 of the 12 medals on offer in the 100, including all four golds — two each by Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson-Herah. In Beijing in 2008, Jamaica swept the podium, the first time any country had ever done that in the women’s 100. Thirteen years later in Tokyo, they did it again.

But in 2024, we may finally witness a changing of the Olympic guard. America has the world champion, Sha’Carri Richardson, seeking to end a US gold medal drought in the Olympic 100 that has stretched to 28 years (we’re not counting Marion Jones in 2000, who was later stripped of her gold for doping). Meanwhile, Jamaica’s stars are fading, and the new generation, led by 19-year-old twins Tina and Tia Clayton, have not quite arrived yet. Everything is poised for Richardson to add the Olympic title to her world crown and become one of the biggest track stars this country has ever seen.

To earn that title, the 24-year-old Richardson will have to survive three rounds against the strongest competition of any meet in the world. There will be more eyeballs on her — both in-person at the Stade de France and on screens around the world — than any race in which Richardson has ever competed. It is an environment designed to test the world’s greatest athletes, both physically and mentally.

But make no mistake: if Richardson runs her best race on the night of August 3, nobody is beating her.

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Sha’Carri Richardson: From the Olympic sidelines to gold medal favorite

Richardson was meant to compete at her first Olympics three years ago, but as the entire world knows by now, she was suspended after testing positive for marijuana following her electrifying victory at the US Trials. Had she competed in Tokyo, Richardson would have been in the medal mix but realistically had no shot at gold — Thompson-Herah was in the midst of one of the greatest seasons ever by a female sprinter and won gold in an Olympic record of 10.61, which remains the fourth-fastest time ever run.

Richardson missed her shot at immediate redemption the next year by bombing out of the US championships in the first round and failing to qualify for the 2022 World Championships. But last year, a refocused Richardson emerged with a new mantra — “I’m not back, I’m better” — and rolled through the regular season before winning gold at Worlds in Budapest, after a hiccup in the semifinals which she only got out of as a time qualifier, with a championship record of 10.65 seconds from lane 9.

In 2024, with an even bigger spotlight trained on her, Richardson has scaled back her racing, and her early-season performances were underwhelming. She went to China for a pair of 200-meter races in April and ran poorly; Richardson failed to win either race and her times of 22.99 and 23.11 were more than a second slower than her personal best.

But in her specialty distance of 100 meters — which she has raced at just two meets this year — Richardson has still shown herself as the woman to beat. She won her 100 opener at the Prefontaine Classic in 10.83, well clear of runner-up St. Lucia’s Julien Alfred (10.93), who will enter Paris as the #2 seed. And though Richardson failed to make the US team in the 200 at the Olympic Trials, she won the 100 in a world-leading 10.71.

Typically, Richardson’s biggest rivals would come from Jamaica, but that may not be the case this year. Two-time defending Olympic champ Elaine Thompson-Herah isn’t in Paris due to an Achilles injury. There are questions surrounding last year’s Worlds silver medalist, Shericka Jackson, who has not been as fast in 2024 (10.65 sb) as in 2023 (10.84 sb) and who pulled up before the finish line in her final pre-Olympic race on July 9. And while Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is the GOAT of 100 meters and will line up for a fifth Olympics in Paris, she is also 37 years old and has barely raced in 2024 with a season’s best of just 10.91.

That leaves the 23-year-old Alfred, chasing St. Lucia’s first Olympic medal in any sport, as the biggest threat to Richardson. The 2022 and 2023 NCAA champion for Texas, Alfred won the World Indoor title at 60 meters this year and enters the Olympics in red-hot form, running a 10.78 pb (+1.3) in Kingston in June and 10.85 (-1.0) to win Monaco on July 12 — a performance that ranks as even more impressive than her 10.78 given it was run into a headwind (Jonas Mureika‘s calculator converts her Kingston run to 10.86 in still conditions and the Monaco run to 10.78).

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Richardson’s start will be crucial

While Alfred is a formidable opponent, Richardson’s biggest obstacle on her path to Olympic gold is herself. Specifically, her start.

Richardson’s top gear is overwhelming — few women in history have been able to accelerate as viciously and suddenly as she can — but her start remains a work in progress. We saw it in last year’s World Championship semifinals, where Richardson hung in the blocks for a beat at the gun and could not make up the ground to Shericka Jackson and Marie-Josée Ta Lou, forcing Richardson to sweat out a time qualifier for the final. And we saw it again during the prelims and semis at the Olympic Trials in June.

This is Richardson’s prelim at the Trials. Her start was so poor she almost ran into the next lane:

Richardson is so good that in most races, 100 meters is still plenty of time for her to recover. The race above? She still ran 10.88 and had time to look over at the clock before finishing. That horrific start in the Budapest semis last year? She still ran 10.84.

And to Richardson’s credit, she has got her start right when it matters. She had her best start of the Olympic Trials in the final and ran 10.71. Same for Worlds last year, where she ran 10.65.

But if Richardson gets a poor start in the final in Paris, she could find herself facing a gap too large to overcome considering Alfred is one of quickest starters around (her 60m pb of 6.94 seconds ranks #2 all-time). Richardson’s training partner Melissa Jefferson, the US runner-up and #3 seed at the Olympics thanks to her 10.80 sb, is another woman who typically starts well and could be a threat if Richardson falters

“Nobody that starts that inconsistently can be considered unbeatable,” NBC sprint analyst Ato Boldon said on this week’s LetsRun.com Track Talk Podcast. “And Sha’Carri, last year, she was rattling off starts that were like an 8 and a 9 sometimes. And then now you see her and I’m like, ooh, that was a like 3, that was a 4.”

She may not be unbeatable, but Richardson is the clear favorite for gold. Count Boldon among those who believes Richardson will start well enough at the Olympics to bring home America’s first gold in 28 years.

“I think this is just Sha’Carri’s time,” Boldon said.