Sha’Carri Richardson (2000- ) is the fastest woman in the US and the sixth fastest of all time:
The ten fastest women ever in the 100m race:
- Flo Jo (Florence Griffith-Joyner), US, 10.49 seconds in 1988
- Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Jamaica, 10.63 in 2021
- Carmelita Jeter, US, 10.64 in 2009
- Marion Jones, US, 10.65 in 1998
- Elaine Thompson, Jamaica, 10.70 in 2016
- Sha’Carri Richardson, US, 10.72 in 2021
- Christine Arron, France, 10.73 in 1998
- Merlene Ottey, Jamaica, 10.74 in 1996
- English Gardner, US, 10.74 in 2016
- Kerron Stewart, Jamaica, 10.75 in 2009
But she will not be able to take part in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (delayed a year due to the covid-19 pandemic): when trying out for the US Olympic team on June 19th she failed the drug test. Not for any drug that would help her run faster, but for THC, the active ingredient in cannabis (marijuana, weed). Not something anyone would take to win a race! If anything it makes her qualifying time even more impressive.
She was banned for 30 days, till July 27th, by the US Anti-Doping Agency. She accepted the ban with good grace:
“I apologize. As much as I’m disappointed, I know that when I step on the track I represent not only myself, I represent a community that has shown great support, great love. … I apologize for the fact that I didn’t know how to control my emotions or deal with my emotions during that time.”
She had found out about the death of her birth mother a week before the Olympic trials – from a reporter!
The Olympics run from July 23rd to August 8th. She could still take part in the 4x100m relay race on August 5th and help the US win – but USATF (USA Track & Field) did not pick her for the team, to “maintain fairness for all of the athletes who attempted to realize their dreams”. She knew the rules!
President Biden:
“The rules are the rules.”
But he helped shape those rules! As a senator he championed the 1994 Crime Bill which drove the mass incarceration of Black men, and the increased criminalization of drugs, cannabis among them. The US Olympic team’s policies were not made on another planet. Not even in another country. Not even by people who do not look like him.
Historical background: In the US, cannabis has long been used to demonize, arrest, and imprison Blacks and Latinos. Thus “marijuana”, the preferred term in the US, is – Spanish. Whites use the drug at about the same rate as Blacks yet are way less likely to be arrested for it, much less thrown in prison.
Legalization: In 2021 it is now legal in the US in almost every blue (left-leaning) state – and even in some red states. It is legal in Oregon, on the Left Coast, where Richardson’s Olympic trials took place. But it is still banned by the US Olympic Committee by way of the US Anti-Doping Agency. They want their athletes to set an example. (Alcohol: not banned.)
Richardson is 21. Flo Jo did not reach the height of her powers till age 28. The next Olympics is just three years away.
Her story is not over.
– Abagond, 2021.
See also:
- Olympics
- Flo Jo
- Caster Semenya
- John Carlos
- Jesse Owens
- cannabis
- Harry J. Anslinger – he who handcuffed Billie Holiday on her death bed for heroin use.
- 1994 Crime Bill
- The mass incarceration of Black men
- racial profiling
- Why crime statistics cannot be trusted – in two charts
- covid-19
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There’s always a blessing in a storm. I want to believe Sha’Carri is safe. Tokyo doesn’t want their own citizens to attend the venues because of the risk. Sha’Carri will live to race another day. I respect her for owning her mistake. A taco could have been her undoing. She might never have lived that down.
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Sha’Carri is going to be alright.
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Elaine Thompson of Jamaica won the 100m.
Going into the Olympics she was the fith fastest woman ever (see the list in the post), just ahead of Sha’Carri Richardson. Now she is #2, just behind Flo Jo. She ran 100m in 10.61 seconds, beating Flo Jo’s Olympic record but not her all-time record of 10.49.
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Shout out to the sisters from Jamaica 🇯🇲
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