Sha’Carri Richardson Banned From Olympics

Sha’Carri Richardson is a high performance athlete. She won the 100 meter with an astonishing time of 10.86 seconds. She won the 2017 Pan American U20 Championship for the 100 meter relay. Furthermore, she is only 21 years old, which means her future is bright. However, she just got disqualified  from the Olympic trials and she had to forfeit all medals, prizes and points. The question then becomes why. Was she found using anabolic steroids to drastically improve her performance? Nope, she wasn’t. Was she using illegal shoes that made her faster? Nah. Was she creating an elaborate scheme to mess with her competition so she could win? Definitely not. Sha’Carri Richardson was disqualified and stripped of her accolades for simply testing positive for a chemical found in marijuana. I don’t know about y’all, but anytime I’m baked the only thing that’s kinda fast is my hand reaching for the hot cheeto bag. Marijuana does not give you Usain Bolt level speed, or any extra speed for that matter. In fact, marijuana is completely legal in the state where she smoked it. 

In a statement showing maturity well beyond her years, Sha’Carri did in fact own up to smoking and accepted her punishment. I don’t think anybody needs to have a reason to consume marijuana; however, for everyone wondering why she might have been smoking before competition, she had recently discovered the death of her biological mother. With such a traumatic and impactful event like that, it makes sense that she needed something to ease her stress and pain. This young athlete’s response to everyone criticizing her for it was the following, “Who are you? Who am I to tell you how to cope when you’re dealing with a pain or you’re dealing with a struggle that you’ve never experienced before or that you never thought you’d have to deal with. Who am I to tell you how to cope? Who am I to tell you you’re wrong for hurting?” Frankly, she is not wrong.

Social media and plenty of people have publicized their support for her – such as Gabrielle Union, AOC, Sue Bird and Lamelo Ball. The Olympics have a history of discriminating against Black athletes. Not too long ago, they banned swim caps from Soul Cap which were designed for voluminous Black hair. They claimed athletes didn’t need caps that were so big. Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi are two black athletes who were disqualified from the 400 meter sprint for having elevated testosterone levels, which they were born with. It’s tragic to see Sha’Carri facing this treatment from the Olympics, and hopefully when her one month ban is gone, she comes back and shows everyone that they missed out on putting a top tier athlete on the big stage.