EUGENE, Oregon — Sha’Carri Richardson earned sweet redemption and a spot at the world championships as she won the 100 metres in 10.82 seconds at the US championships, while Cravont Charleston won in an upset on the men’s side in 9.95.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone turned in a dominant performance to win the women´s 400 meters at the US track and field championships.
Richardson lost her place at the Tokyo Olympics after a positive cannabis test and failed to qualify for last year’s worlds but would not be denied this time around, beating Brittany Brown by eight hundredths of a second.
After her victory, she conceded in a TV interview that she wasn´t ready for the moment at the 2021 Olympic Trials, where, shortly after her victory, she tested positive for using marijuana.
“Now, I stand here with you again and I´m ready, mentally, physically and emotionally,” said the 23-year-old, who ran in her natural black braids with a star shaved into the right side of her hairdo. “I´m here to say, ‘I´m not back, I´m better.´”
She’ll have a chance to put a stamp on that next month at world championships, which will mark her first major international meet. Earning America’s second and third spots in the event were Brittany Brown (10.90) and Tamari Davis (10.99).
Moments after Richardson´s win, Cravont Charleston pulled an upset in the men’s 100, finishing in 9.95 to edge 2019 world champion Christian Coleman by .01. It was the 25-year-old Charleston’s first final in a major meet and he made the best of it.
“To win,” Charleston said when asked what his goal is for his first world championships. “Of course, to win. That’s the goal. Always to win.”
Noah Lyles finished third, only four days after getting over a bout of COVID. He’ll go for a double at worlds, his spot in his signature event, the 200, already assured because he is the defending world champion.
“I had the dream I could make that double,” Lyles said according to AP.
He is one of 10 American athletes, including Fred Kerley (100), Athing Mu (800) and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (400 hurdles) who are defending world champions and have automatic bids into the meet in Budapest, Hungary, next month.
McLaughlin-Levrone ran 49.60 in the 400 flat to win the semifinal in that event by 1.4 seconds.
Among the summer’s biggest questions is what McLaughlin-Levrone will do come Budapest.
But this week has mostly been about Richardson, who has not looked in this good of form since the 2021 Olympic Trials, when she routed the field, only to have the result vacated when her drug test came back positive.
She admitted she used marijuana to relieve stress after learning her mother had died. That episode triggered a debate about whether marijuana should really be on the banned list.
Officials elected to leave it on the list because experts determined it was “against the spirit of sport.”
Richardson ran the best time of the year, 10.71, in opening heats, but she’ll leave Eugene with only the worlds’ second-fastest 100 time of the week. A few hours before Richardson’s final,
Shericka Jackson won Jamaica’s championships with a time of 10.65 seconds, setting up Jackson and Richardson as the fastest contenders at worlds.
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