Sha’Carri Richardson is not going to run in the women’s 100 meters at the Tokyo Olympics. That race is at the start of the track and field competition at the Games.
For that matter, she is very unlikely to run in the women’s 4x100 meter relay. That relay is near the end.
“We have not focused on the relay,” her agent, Renaldo Nehemiah, said Friday afternoon in a telephone interview. “I just felt that was not healthy for her to get excited about possibly being in Tokyo. I felt it would be a shock and a surprise. Her sights are going to be on the Prefontaine Classic,” on August 21 back at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, a World Athletics Diamond League meet.
Richardson’s 30-day marijuana-related suspension does far more than seemingly take one of the brightest young U.S. stars out of the Tokyo Games, which begin July 23.
Sha’Carri Richardson after the women’s 100 at the U..S. Trials in Eugene // Getty Images
It also highlights the need for context and empathy — and a renewed appreciation for athlete mental health — when bright young talents, burnished by the star-making machinery of television as the next big thing, are revealed behind the scenes as human beings just like the rest of us, in this instance, a 21-year-old young woman desperately grieving the loss of her mother.
In this context, it also highlights the way that USA Track & Field, under the leadership of chief executive Max Siegel and chief operating officer Renee Washington, have again, indeed relentlessly, stepped up to provide precisely such empathy and athlete support — in direct contrast to the way such matters might have been dealt with in the past.
Finally, it signals two more things.
One, track and field has an amazing and seemingly never-ending ability to buzzkill itself. Here, the sport is on the verge of its every-four-years moment in the world spotlight. A Sha’Carri Richardson appears. A worthy successor, perhaps, to FloJo. And then — Richardson is forced to the shadows. Why? Because of marijuana.
Weed?
Really.
Which leads to No. 2.
The World Anti-Doping Agency rules are what they are.
On Twitter, in particular, the shouting was ferocious Friday that Richardson was being railroaded.
The argument goes like this: Richardson was busted for using weed in a state, Oregon, where weed is legal. And yet the World Anti-Doping Agency says weed, in certain circumstances — which apply in Richardson’s case — is against the rules.
Like, the argument goes, that’s just wrong, dude.
Maybe it would be better, this being 2021, if the rules were different for marijuana.
But the world does not yet reflect the view of what passes for shouting on Twitter.
WADA does not care about provincial rules in our 50 states. Weed is legal in Oregon? Cool. What are the rules for meldonium in Russia’s 21 republics? What are the rules for hashish in the mountains of Afghanistan? For mushrooms on the beaches of Thailand?
And for sure WADA does not reflect the hyperventilating on Twitter that is blue-state America.
Weed is legal in 19 states. That means a majority of states — 31 — say it’s still uncool. Plus, the federal government still maintains it’s very uncool. Try showing your 420 stash to a TSA agent or taking it out at customs and see.
Around the world, too, marijuana is still considered highly uncool. Try having some on you and check it out. It’s four years in prison in the United Arab Emirates, per that noted expert source High Times, which notes that in Indonesia marijuana is “lumped into the same category as cocaine, meth and heroin,” and will get you four to 12.
So all the shouting reflects, first, an America-only view of the world, which is shortsighted and, second, neglects even a basic understanding of process. WADA reviews its rules every four years. Marijuana is still considered, in some contexts, performance-enhancing, and, moreover, a substance not consistent with the notion of athletes as role models for young people.
Here is the link to the 2021 prohibited list that clearly shows marijuana.
Here is a link to a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency FAQ that explains why marijuana is still on the list.
Here is the statement that USATF put out Friday in connection with Richardson’s suspension:
“Sha’Carri Richardson’s situation is incredibly unfortunate and devastating for everyone involved. Athlete health and well-being continue to be one of USATF’s most critical priorities and we will work with Sha’Carri to ensure she has ample resources to overcome any mental health challenges now and in the future.”
Compare and contrast those words with these, which then-USATF chief executive Doug Logan issued in April 2010 after 400-meter champion LaShawn Merritt tested positive for a substance in a penis-enhancement product, ExtenZe, that Merritt had bought at a 7-Eleven near his Portsmouth, Virginia, home:
“We understand that Mr. Merritt’s case is still ongoing with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, and USATF awaits USADA’s decision on the case. Any professional athlete in the sport knows that they are solely responsible for anything that goes into their bodies. For Mr. Merritt to claim inadvertent use of a banned substance due to the ingestion of over-the-counter supplements brings shame to himself and his teammates. Thanks to his selfish actions, he has done damage to our efforts to fight the plague of performance-enhancing drugs in our sport.
“Mr. Merritt has been an integral part of Team USA and the sport in this country. He has now put his entire career under a cloud and in the process made himself the object of jokes. In this day and age, a professional athlete should know better. Personally, I am disgusted by this entire episode.”
Richardson, throughout this process, has been forthright. She apologized. She said she was human. She said she made a mistake.
Did her sponsors, including Nike, drop her? No. Just the opposite. Context and empathy. “We appreciate Sha’Carri’s honesty and accountability and will continue to support her through this time,” the company said in a statement.
Did USATF rip her? No. Just the opposite. Context and empathy.
Richardson, in Eugene, bought the weed that showed up in her system on June 16. She smoked it that night. Many of the details of her mother’s passing — which she told the world about after winning the women’s 100 in 10.86 seconds on Saturday, the 19th — remain unclear.
But what is manifestly plain is that she managed, somehow, to call upon a reservoir of want-to despite the obviously nearly overwhelming grief of losing her mother and the crushing pressure of making the hardest team in the world.
At just 21.
“It’s my fault,” Nehemiah said Friday.
In the leadup to Saturday’s finals, he said, “I felt if I didn’t take her back to the obvious, that her mother had passed, it would keep her moving. But I guess her mind was still there.
“Hindsight,” he said with a sigh, “is 20/20.”