Sha’Carri Richardson’s Olympic dreams were dashed last month after she was suspended from Team USA over a positive marijuana test.
Luckily for the fastest woman in America, she will have a chance to compete next week at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, where she’s set to race against Team Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, and Shericka Jackson.
The three athletes recently won gold, silver, and bronze, respectively, in the Tokyo Olympics 100m final, the event Richardson, 21, was set to compete in before being disqualified.
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But Richardson is not trying to prove anything as she faces off against the very women she would have competed against in Tokyo.
“Sha’Carri is focused on running a good race since she last competed at the US Olympic Trials,” Richardson’s agent Renaldo Nehemiah toldThe Wall Street Journal. “She will be focused on executing her race to the best of her ability regardless of who is in the race.”
Richardsonimpressed with a time of 10.86in June, when she won the women’s 100m race at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials in Eugene. She ultimatelylost her spot on Team USAafter shetested positive for THC, a chemical in marijuana, following the trials.
U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis T. Tygart called the decision to suspend Richardson “heartbreaking on many levels,” emphasizing: “The rules are clear.” The Louisiana State University alum ultimatelyaccepted the USADA’s one-month suspension.
“I am human,” Richardson wrote on Twitter amid the positive results of the drug test. “I know what I did. I know what I’m supposed to do and what I’m allowed not to do, and I still made that decision,” she later said onToday. “But I’mnot making an excuseor looking for any empathy in my case.”
RELATED VIDEO: Sha’Carri Richardson Says ‘I Am Human’ Amid Suspension from Olympic Team for Positive Marijuana Test
Richardson also explained how finding out about the death of her biological mother the week before the trials was a “heavy” experience for her. “People don’t understand what it’s like to have to — alright, people do. We all have our different struggles. We all have our different things we deal with,” she said.
“But to put on a face, to have to go in front of the world and put on a face and hide my pain, I don’t know,” Richardson continued. “Who am I to tell you how to cope when you’re dealing with pain? Or you’re dealing with a struggle that you’ve never experienced before? Or that you never thought you’d have to deal with?”
source: people.com
