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Sha’Carri Richardson Finishes Last in 100-Meter Return


Sha’Carri Richardson sent a message before she returned to the track on Saturday.

“Aug. 21,” she wrote alongside a video she posted on Instagram this week, “and I’m not playing nice.”

The message was clear: Weeks after a positive drug test cost her Olympic dream, Richardson was, in the video and in real life, ready to run again. On Saturday at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., though, her return to competition at the Prefontaine Classic did not go as planned.

Facing a field that included all three Olympic medalists in her marquee event, the 100-meter dash, Richardson was beaten badly, finishing last in a time of 11.14 seconds. That was more than half a second behind the time of Elaine Thompson-Herah of Jamaica, the Tokyo gold medalist.

Thompson-Herah’s countrywoman Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce finished second, and Shericka Jackson came in third, replicating the podium from the Tokyo Olympics. Richardson, running in the Lane 4 spot reserved for the favorite, was out of contention after only a few strides.

In an interview last month, Nehemiah said that after the drug violation, Richardson needed a break from the overheated spotlight that her suspension had created. Her fame only grew with her absence from the Games.

Nehemiah said he and Richardson decided almost immediately to target Saturday’s Prefontaine Classic for her next competition, which took place on the same track where she had won at the trials.

In an effort to widen her focus beyond the Tokyo Games, which she was going to miss, Richardson wrote a tweet about shifting her attention to the major competitions during the next three years, which include world championships in 2022 and 2023 and the Paris Olympics in 2024.

The march toward those events began in earnest on Saturday. But her performance on the track did not match her talk off it.

“They’re not done seeing me yet,” Richardson said of her competitors. “Period.”



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