Sha'Carri Richardson shockingly fails to qualify for 100m final at USA Track and Field Championships
- Sha'Carri Richardson failed to advance out of the heats in the 100m at the USA Track and Field Championships.
- Richardson had famously missed the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for marijuana at Trials.
American sprinting sensation Sha'Carri Richardson, who famously failed a drug test that disqualified her from the Tokyo Olympics last year, did not advance out of the heats in her signature event at the USA Track and Field Championships, which began Thursday night.
Richardson, who ranked as high as sixth in the world in the 100 meters, finished her heat in fifth place, with a time of 11.31 seconds, missing the cut-off to qualify for Friday's semifinal. The shocking result means she will not run the 100m at the World Athletics Championships next month in Eugene, Oregon.
It's the latest setback for the 22-year-old sprinter, who has attracted controversy since she burst onto the scene as the US's top qualifier in the 100m for the Tokyo Games. However, days after her dominant run at the Olympic Trials, it was revealed that a post-race drug test came back showing traces of THC, a banned chemical found in marijuana.
In an interview with the Today Show days later, Richardson admitted to using the drug, speaking of the pressures she faced and the shock of learning of the death of her biological mother. On Tuesday, she tweeted a clip of that interview, noting, "I wish I never did this. I wish I had the choice when it was time for me to tell my story."
Days earlier, she had also tweeted cryptically about the US Anti-Doping Agency, suggesting it "give[s] us all these rules but can not follow themselves. Stop giving us rules that y'all can bend just to get more money."
She offered no other context to those comments, running past reporters after her shocking finish in Eugene Thursday. Richardson's hopes for Worlds are not over. She will race in the women's 200m, which will begin heats on Saturday at noon PDT.