Richardson rolls to victory in 100
Defending World champion's top-end speed cannot be denied in Olympic Trials
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd7d1feba-09cb-4a55-b459-bf7792918b75_1200x800.jpeg)
One of these days, Sha’Carri Richardson is going to run a complete race in the 100-meter dash. And when that happens, the track and field world will finally get an opportunity to see how fast she really is.
I write that because the 24-year-old Richardson won the women’s 100 in a yearly world-leading time of 10.71 seconds to cap the second day of competition in the U.S. Olympic Team Trials in Eugene, Oregon, on Saturday after turning in a far from perfect performance.
Her start was decent for someone who is not known for getting out of the blocks quickly, but it was not the best she has ever had. She then wound her way through the different phases of her race to reach a top-end speed that appears to be superior to what any other female sprinter in the world currently possesses. But then she stepped off the accelerator in the final 10 meters of the race — when her victory was well in hand — and made no attempt to dip her upper torso across the finish line in an effort to shave a hundredth or two of a second off her time.
“Definitely, didn’t have the best start, but I had a better start than in my other rounds,” Richardson said when Lewis Johnson of NBC Sports asked her to talk about how she had been able to put together the complete race that her coach, Dennis Mitchell, was looking for.
She then added that her coach “might fuss a little bit about the way” she crossed the finish line, “but other than that, it was a great race… in the 100.”
Mitchell was probably feeling pretty good about things at that moment for Richardson and fellow training partners Melissa Jefferson and TeeTee Terry, whom he also coaches, swept the top three places in a race that was aided by a wind of 0.8 meters per second in the meet at the University of Oregon’s Hayward Field.
While Richardson’s time was tied for the second-fastest of her career and equal to the 11th-fastest performance in U.S. history, Jefferson’s 10.80 clocking in second place moved her to 13th on the all-time U.S. performer list. In addition, Terry’s 10.89 effort in third place was a season best and gave her the third — and final — spot on the U.S. women’s 100-meter squad that will compete in the athletics portion of the Olympic Games in Paris from August 1-11.
Tamari Davis finished fourth in 10.93, followed by Aleia Hobbs in fifth in 10.93, and Tamara Clark in sixth in 10.95 in the nine-sprinter final.
Richardson’s victory occurred about two hours after she had posted the fastest time in the semifinals when she ran 10.86 — to the 10.99 of second-place Davis — in the first heat after getting off to a bad start and again easing up before crossing the finish line.
Clark won the second semifinal in 11.09 while finishing a hundredth of a second in front of second-place Candace Hill in a race in which recently-crowned NCAA champion McKenzie Long from the University of Mississippi placed a non-qualifying fourth in 11.15 after coming out of the blocks very slowly.
Jefferson, who had won the USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships in 2022, won the third semifinal in a season best of 10.87 while finishing comfortably in front of second-place Hobbs in 10.99. Terry finished third in 11.04 and advanced to the final as what is often called a time qualifier because she was one of the three fastest performers across the three semifinals who did not finish amongst the top two individuals in their respective race.
Richardson, who had run a personal best of 10.65 in winning the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, last August, looked very serious and focused just before she settled into her starting blocks for the final.
And though she got off to what might be described as a mediocre start for some elite sprinters, she came out of the blocks much quicker than she had in her semifinal or in her first-round heat on Friday when she stumbled to her right during the first 10 meters of the race. That left her with less ground to make up as the final unfolded and she began to move past first-place Jefferson about 60 meters into the race and had taken control of the contest 20 meters later. While Jefferson did a good job maintaining her form and focus after being overtaken by Richardson, Terry closed very well over the final 40 meters of the race as she had not gotten off to a quick start.
Although the women’s 100 might have been the most eagerly anticipated event of the meet on Saturday, finals were also contested in the men’s shot put and women’s triple jump, and the decathlon concluded with the second day of competition.
Ryan Crouser won his third consecutive Olympic Trials title in the shot put, while decathlon winner Heath Baldwin and triple jump victor Jasmine Moore won their first.
While Crouser had entered the meet as the two-time defending Olympic and World champion, as well as the world record-holder at 23.56 meters (77 feet 3¾ inches), various injuries had prevented him from competing since he had set a meet record of 22.77 (74-8½) in winning the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, on March 1.
Nonetheless, he won the final at 22.84 (74-11¼) on Saturday and also had three other puts that would have been good enough to win the competition. Joe Kovacs, a two-time World champion and the silver medalist in the last two Olympics, finished second at 22.43 (73-7¼) and Payton Otterdahl placed third at 22.26 (73-0½).
The 31-year-old Crouser took the lead with a first-round put of 22.44 (73-7½) before hitting 22.51 (73-10¼) and 21.66 (71-0¾) on his next two efforts. He then unleashed his best effort of 22.84 (74-11¼) in the fourth round before following that with a put of 22.56 (74-0¼) in the fifth round and a foul in the sixth.
Kovacs, who had produced puts of 23.13 (75-10¾) and 23.03 (75-6¾) in the Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field on May 25, hit 22.43 (73-7¼) in the first round on Saturday, but he was unable to top that mark in the last five rounds.
“It was a tough spring, to say the least,” Crouser told Johnson. “So I was just happy to be out here competing again. You never want to open the season at the Olympic Trials if you can help it, but that’s kind of what it required and [I] battled these guys.
“It was a tough comp and [I] surprised myself a little bit so it’s a good sign. We’re sending a fantastic team to Paris.”
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F969ee844-7d47-46c5-a039-d067996ca693_1200x800.jpeg)
Baldwin, a graduate student at Michigan State University, won the decathlon with a personal best of 8,625 points that moved him to 13th on the all-time U.S. performer list. He was followed by Zach Ziemek in second place with 8,516 points and Harrison Williams in third with 8,384.
Former collegiate record-holder Kyle Garland was in second place, 21 points behind first-place Baldwin, after the discus, but he did not compete in the pole vault and NBC Sports reported on its broadcast on Saturday night that he had sustained a foot injury while warming up for that event.
After totaling a personal best of 8,470 points in finishing second in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays in Walnut, California, in April, Baldwin had chosen to bypass the NCAA championships from June 5-8 so he could better his chances of being at his best in the Olympic Trials. That decision appeared to pay dividends as he came from behind to defeat 2022 World Championship bronze medalist Ziemek.
Baldwin had started the second day with a 31-point lead over second-place Ziemek after he totaled 4,508 points on Friday.
He then produced marks of 13.77 seconds in the 110-meter high hurdles and 43.67 (143-3) in the discus to take a 21-point lead over Garland and a 34-point advantage over Ziemek as he entered the pole vault.
He cleared 4.85 (15-11) in that event, but Ziemek produced the highest vault of the competition at 5.35 (17-6½) to enter the javelin with a 121-point lead over Baldwin.
However, Baldwin made up 158 points on Ziemek in the javelin when his 66.69 (218-9) throw was the best in the competition and Ziemek’s 56.24 (184-6) effort was the eighth best.
Baldwin than added to his lead in the 1,500 meters when he clocked 4:41.87 to Ziemek’s 4:53.65.
“It’s kind of mind blowing, it’s pretty cool,” Baldwin was quoted as saying in a Eugene Register Guard post. “I feel like I’m pretty confident in myself, so I knew that if I did my thing that this was going to happen. I’m not shocked, but to actually do it is pretty crazy. I’m still kind of processing it … I’m excited that I get the opportunity to compete against some of the best guys in the world. Cause I feel like I’m on that stage that I can represent the U.S. well.”
Moore won the women’s triple jump on Saturday when she bounded 14.26 (46-9½) on her sixth — and final — attempt.
That jump improved upon her previous best of 14.07 (46-2) from the first round and left her four centimeters in front of second-place Keturah Orji, who registered her top effort of 14.22 (46-8) on her sixth jump after entering the final round with a competition-leading mark of 14.18 (46-6¼).
Tori Franklin, the 2022 World Championship bronze medalist, finished third at 13.72 (45-0¼).
The 23-year-old Moore, who had recorded her best-ever jump of 15.12 (49-7¼) in winning the NCAA indoor title last year, did not have a great day by her standards, as her three other fair jumps measured 13.98 (45-10½), 13.87 (45-6¼), and 13.43 (44-0¾). But she produced a clutch effort in the sixth round.
Now she, Orji, and Franklin will have to wait and see if they will advance to the Olympic Games in Paris based on World Athletics’ ranking system.
It appears they will have to go that route because none of them have met or surpassed the automatic qualifying standard of 14.55 (47-9) for the Games during the qualification period that began on July 1, 2023, and will end on June 30, the last day of the Trials.
World Athletics is expected to release its final rankings on July 7.
In other events on Saturday, semifinals were held in the men’s 1,500 meters and the women’s 400, with first-round heats being contested in the men’s 100, and qualifying rounds being held in the men’s long jump and women’s high jump.
Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse won the two semifinals of the men’s 1,500 with times of 3:37.89 and 3:34.09, respectively.
Hocker, who had run 3:34.54 in heat on Friday, ran just off the lead for much of his semifinal, before spurting to the front in the final 50 meters of a race in which Liam Murphy of Villanova University and fellow collegian Ethan Strand of North Carolina placed second and third, respectively, with identical times of 3:38.08.
Nuguse was in the lead for most of the second semifinal as he went through 400 meters in 57.11 seconds, 800 in 1:56.22 (59.11), and 1,200 in 2:53.72 (57.50).
He then looked very controlled while running his last 300 meters in 40.37 while finishing just in front of second-place Hobbs Kessler, who clocked 3:34.16.
Henry Wynne finished third in 3:34.40, while collegians Nathan Green of Washington and Elliott Cook of Oregon ran personal bests of 3:34.49 and 3:34.52. respectively, while grabbing the fourth and fifth automatic qualifying places in the race.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F60172081-5637-45ce-8dbd-3629a41de1fc_1200x800.jpeg)
The three semifinals of the women’s 400 were won by University of Arkansas freshman Kaylyn Brown in 49.71, Kendall Ellis in a personal best of 49.81, and Lynna Irby-Jackson in 50.17.
Brown, who had run a personal best of 49.13 while finishing second to teammate Nickisha Pryce (48.89) in the NCAA championships two weeks earlier, was followed across the finish line by Georgia sophomore Aaliyah Butler, who placed second in 50.01.
Ellis, who bettered her previous best of 49.99 from 2018, was followed by Shamier Little in 50.16.
Irby-Jackson was a comfortable winner of the third semifinal that saw Isabella Whittaker, the sister of Stanford 800-meter standout Juliette Whittaker, nabbed the second automatic qualifying spot with a time of 50.48.
Talitha Diggs, a member of the past two U.S. World Championship teams in the 400, placed a non-qualifying fourth in 50.78, and Rosey Effiong of Arkansas, who finished fourth in the NCAA championships in 49.72, was fifth in 50.92.
Noah Lyles, who won the 100 and 200 and ran the anchor leg on the victorious 4 x 100-meter relay team in the World Championships last year, posted the fastest first-round time in the men’s 100 when he won the first of five heats in 9.92 seconds.
The other heat winners, in order of fastest times, were 2019 World champion Christian Coleman in 9.99, Courtney Lindsey in 10.00, 2022 World champion Fred Kerley in 10.03, and Brandon Hicklin in 10.08.
Cravont Charleston was a notable non-qualifier as the winner of last year’s USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships finished eighth in the third heat with a time of 10.49.
Charleston was running his first race since he had finished fifth in 10.18 in a heat of last year’s World Championships while reportedly dealing with an injury.
Johnny Brackins of USC and Will Williams led qualifying in the men’s long jump with marks of 8.03 (26-4¼) and Damarcus Simpson was the third of 12 qualifiers with a best of 8.00 (26-3).
The top 10 qualifiers in the women’s high jump each cleared 1.83 (6-0).
Amongst those 10 were two-time Olympian Vashti Cunningham, who has a personal best of 2.02 (6-7½), and Rachel Glenn of Arkansas, who tied the collegiate indoor record of 2.00 (6-6¾) in winning the NCAA title in March.
Today’s meet will start this afternoon at 1 o’clock, Eastern Daylight Time, with heats of the 100-meter hurdles in the heptathlon.
Those races will be followed by the heptathlon high jump at 2:23 p.m.
The final of the women’s hammer throw will start at 8 p.m., followed by the final of the men’s pole vault at 8:40.
The first running event of the evening session will be the semifinals of the men’s 100 at 8:48.
The other finals being contested today will be the men’s javelin at 9:40, the women’s 400 at 9:58 p.m., the men’s 3,000-meter steeplechase at 10:07, and the men’s 100 at 10:49.
You can click on the following link for live results of the meet.