Reigning European 100m gold medallist Dina Asher-Smith talks about how the world champion is making a big impact, but also how she too is thriving ahead of Paris 2024 thanks to the American way
When you think of international women’s sprinting in recent years, Jamaica is the nation that immediately stands out. While the men have struggled since the retirement of the likes of Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell (albeit that may be about to change), the likes of Elaine Thompson-Herah, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson have been leading the way when it comes to the world’s fastest females.
Those three, in fact, led a clean sweep of the women’s Olympic 100m medals in Tokyo three years ago – a feat they went on to repeat at the 2022 World Championships.
After such a flood of medals in the shortest showpiece sprint, though, the tide was turned last summer when an American stood at the top of a women’s global 100m podium for the first time since 2017.
Sha’Carri Richardson has made a huge impact on her sport, both on and off the track. After scraping into the world final by the skin of her teeth, she produced and unforgettable run in Budapest to win the world title from lane eight. Her goal at the Paris Olympics is the same, though she will hope for rather smoother passage than having to rely on a fastest loser’s spot to reach the final this time around.
Like her compatriot Noah Lyles, the 24-year-old was at the heart of the Netlflix documentary series Sprint that World Athletics have insisted is making waves across the watching world.
From her at times confrontational personality, through to her distinctive style and her searing speed, Richardson’s profile is most certainly on the rise. It will skyrocket should she reach the Olympics’ promised land and one of her fellow sprinters sees a real star in the making.
Dina Asher-Smith now lives and trains in the US and, though she admits she has not watched Sprint yet, the Briton has seen the Richardson effect in full flow close up.
Removing the disgraced drugs cheat Marion Jones from the equation, Gail Devers is the last American woman to have won the women’s 100m Olympic title, when she successfully defended her title in 1996.
Devers’ success followed that of the unforgettable yet eternally controversial Florence Griffith-Joyner, who won the Olympic 100m and 200m double in 1988, while Evelyn Ashford was 100m champion in Los Angeles four years earlier.
Richardson, having missed out on Tokyo…
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