Sha’Carri Richardson caps comeback by winning 100-meter title at worlds

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Track, and fame, can be brutal games. Nobody felt that more over the past two years than American sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson.

On a sultry Monday night a half-world away from where her problems began, the 23-year-old earned a gold medal at world championships in the biggest 100-meter race this side of the Olympics.

Her victory, in 10.65 seconds over Jamaicans Shericka Jackson and five-time world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, capped a comeback two years in the making and made good on the mantra she’s been reciting all year — and repeated yet again after her latest victory: “I’m not back. I’m better.”

Two summers ago after Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon, Richardson’s road to the Tokyo Games was roadblocked by a positive test for marijuana. Her name turned into a litmus test in a wide-ranging debate about race, fairness, the often-impenetrable anti-doping rulebook and, ultimately, about the sometimes razor-thin line between right and wrong.

Richardson said she soaked it all in, surrounded herself with supporters, tried to drown out the rest.

“I would say ‘never give up,’” she said when asked what message this victory sent. “Never allow media, never allow outsiders, never allow anything but yourself and your faith define who you are. I would say ‘Always fight. No matter what, fight.’”

For this victory, in a field featuring four of the eight fastest sprinters in history, she fought.

She fought when the vagaries of the track rulebook placed her in the so-called “Semifinal of Death,” paired against Jackson and Marie-Josée Ta Lou, who came in ranked fifth and eighth all-time, in a race where only the top two finishers were guaranteed spots in the final.

In that semifinal, Richardson got off to a wretched start and had to rally from seventh to finish third in 10.84. Her time was the fastest among all non-qualifiers, so she made it to the final.

A mere 70 minutes later, she was lining up on the edge of the track in Lane 9 for the gold-medal sprint, as tough a spot as there is because there’s no way to feel how the top contenders — or anyone, really — is doing.

It made no difference. Even though she had the third-slowest start in the field, nobody got too far ahead.

In the end, it was a race between her and Jackson. Jackson crossed and, unable to track what Richardson was doing so far on the outside, looked up to the scoreboard as though she might have won.

But Richardson beat her by .07 seconds, Fraser-Pryce by .12 and Ta Lou by .16.

The 10.65 was a world-championships record — Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 35-year-old world record of 10.49 still stands — and matched Jackson for the best time in the world this year.