Sha’Carri Richardson’s chances of a gold medal are now even greater. Jamaican sprinter Shericka Jackson, expected to be one of the top candidates in the 100 meters, has dropped out and will focus on the 200.
“Yes, I only run the 200 meters here,” she said on Wednesday morning at an event at Puma House in Paris“Just point.”
Jackson added that in Paris, her third Olympics, she wants to focus solely on running her fastest times. After all the international shenanigans in 2016 and the COVID-19 vagaries of 2021, she is now accustomed to the Olympic stage.
The news that Jackson would drop the 100 meters was first shared by Jamaican team manager Ludlow Watts with Reuters. Watts declined to give a reason. But on July 9 in Hungary, during her final race before the Olympics, Jackson retired with a calf cramp.
Jackson’s withdrawal comes two months after two-time reigning Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah was forced to withdraw from the Olympics due to injury.
Richardson, who has not lost in the 100 meters this year, makes her Olympic debut in Paris this week and is in the best form of her career.
GO DEEPER
Sha’Carri Richardson, who is chasing an Olympic legacy, has already made one at home
Jackson was one of Richardson’s top competitors in the vaunted dash. Jackson — a gold medalist on Jamaica’s 4×100 team at the Tokyo Olympics and a bronze in the 100 — won the Jamaican trials in June with a time of 10.84 in the 100-meter final. She will be replaced by Shashalee Forbes, whose season-best time is 11.03 seconds.
Jackson and Richardson split their last two head-to-head encounters. Richardson demolished the field at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest. Her stunning come-from-behind victory in 10.65 seconds is featured in the Netflix documentary “Sprint.” Jackson was second in 10.72.
But a month later, Jackson got his revenge at the 2023 Prefontaine Classic, running a wind-aided time of 10.70 to beat Richardson, who finished fourth in 10.80.
Richardson, the pride of Dallas and the face of North Texas track and field, will still have to contend with legendary Jamaican sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Price, who is competing in her fifth and possibly final Olympic Games and will surely want to cap her stellar career with a gold medal.
Jackson’s full focus on the 200 meters, where she hopes to break Florence Griffith-Joyner’s decades-old world record, is now the problem of Gabby Thomas, America’s favorite in the 200 meters.
Follow live coverage of day 5 of the Olympic Games in Paris.
Required reading
(Photo: Stephen Pond/Getty Images for World Athletics)
