Sha’Carri Richardson gets biggest win in two years to open Diamond League

Sha’Carri Richardson earned her biggest win since the Tokyo Olympic Trials, and the most prestigious international race victory of her career at the Diamond League season opener in Doha on Friday.

Richardson won the 100m in 10.76 seconds, the world’s best time this year, beating a field that included the last two world 200m champions — Jamaican Shericka Jackson and Brit Dina Asher-Smith, who were second and third.

“I found my peace back on the track, and I’m not letting anything or anybody take that anymore,” she said, adding that she got “kicked out” of the 100m at her last meet in Botswana last Saturday, where she ran the 200m instead.

Richardson also prevailed over most of the rest of the top Americans, including 2022 U.S. champion Melissa Jefferson and TeeTee Terry, who anchored the U.S. to the 2022 World 4x100m relay title. She is the only U.S. woman to break 10.80 seconds since the start of 2017, and she has done it five times.

That bodes very well for Richardson’s chances at July’s USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships, where the top three in the 100m are in line to qualify for August’s world championships in Budapest (plus more for the relay).

Richardson came into Doha in good form, having run a wind-aided 10.57 on April 8, the fourth-fastest all-conditions 100m in history. The 4.1 meter/second tailwind was twice above the legal limit.

“Y’all say I’m back,” Richardson said before Doha. “I’m not back. I’m better.”

She has yet to compete in a global championship.

In 2019, Richardson entered nationals ranked No. 1 in the nation in the 100m. She placed eighth after an exhausting NCAA season at LSU.

In 2021, she won the Olympic Trials but had that result disqualified after testing positive for marijuana, which is