Sprints Preview: Sha'Carri Richardson To Make Her World Championship Debut
Sprints Preview: Sha'Carri Richardson To Make Her World Championship Debut
Sha'Carri Richardson and Gabby Thomas should be the U.S. stars to watch in the sprints over the World Championships.
The most polarizing athlete in track and field will finally make her global championships debut, and it couldn’t be against a deeper field.
Sha’Carri Richardson won the U.S. Outdoor title in the 100 meters with a blazing 10.71 this summer — only to be outdone the very next day by Shericka Jackson, who won the Jamaican Championships in 10.65.
The two women rank No. 1 and No. 2 in the world this year.
They’ll both have their eye on Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, aka “mommy rocket,” who enters Budapest as the reigning world champion over 100 meters. The 36-year-old is shooting for her sixth World Championships gold in the 100m and eighth global title counting her two Olympic golds in 2008 and 2012.
If she succeeds, she’ll match pole vault legend Sergey Bubka’s record for world titles in one event. She even withdrew from the 200m, an event in which she won silver last year, in order to focus solely on the sport’s glamour event.
Fraser-Pryce will need to lean on her experience for this championship, as a knee injury hampered her build-up. Despite starting her season late, she is still undefeated in the 100m and boasts a season best time of 10.82, the fourth-fastest time in the world this year.
Both Richardson and Jackson will return to the track for the 200m, where the Jamaican plans to retain her world title and perhaps even chase after the world record of 21.34, set by Florence Griffith Joyner in 1988.
Her winning time of 21.45 at the World Championships in 2022 makes her the fastest woman alive and second-fastest in world history.
But she’ll have two new faces with which to contend this year.
There’s Richardson, who ran a wind-aided 21.61 in the early rounds at USAs, and Gabby Thomas, who won the U.S. title in a world-leading time of 21.60. Jackson could merely muster a 21.71 in response — good for No. 2 in the world.
One year after an injury kept her out of the World Championships, Thomas is determined that 2023 will be a memorable summer. She told reporters in the press conference on Friday that track fans will see not only in the 200m, but the 4x100-meter relay, mixed 4x400-meter relay and women’s 4x400-meter relay.
With the absence of 400m U.S. champion Sydney McLaughlin from Worlds due to a self-reported knee injury, Thomas could provide the relay heroics that American track fans have come to expect from the sport’s biggest stars.
Of course, after Thomas and Richardson duke it out over the 200m, they’ll team up for the 4x100m against Fraser-Pryce, Jackson and the rest of Team Jamaica.
Expect these four stars to create some viral moments in the week ahead.
* Johanna Gretschel is a contributing writer to FloTrack
Related Links:
Athing Mu in Budapest? A preview of the women's distance events
Jakob Ingebrigtsen chases history, and more in our men's distance preview
A preview of the women's field events
Ryan Crouser is the prohibitive favorite in the shot put, plus a preview of the men's field events