"I'm Black before an athlete" - When Sha'Carri Richardson shed light on the racism Black athletes face in sports 

In a 2022 interview, Sha'Carri Richardson had shared that the world judges her for being Black before appreciating her athleticism. She spoke about competing to break stereotypes around racism and taking a stand for Black athletes in the sporting domain.

Richardson unleashed her prowess at the 2023 World Athletics Championships track, securing two golds in 100m and 4x100m relays. Since then, she has been eyeing the Paris Olympics 2024 and participating in build-up events.

In 2020, at the US Olympic trials, the 24-year-old posted a remarkable 10.86s in the 100m to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics. However, her Olympic dreams looked far-fetched after her urine sample tested positive for THC metabolites. The USADA issued a one-month ban, thus ruling her out of the Olympics roster. This infuriated Sha'Carri Richardson.

Two years later, Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva was allowed to compete at the 2022 Winter Games despite a failed drug test, which once again drew an angry reaction from Richardson. The American questioned via X (formerly Twitter) if racism was behind the decision.

Later, in an interview with Teen Vogue in 2022, she said that breaking stereotypes in sports is her primary goal since people see her skin color before judging her athletic prowess.

"When I'm off the track, I experience things just like… Any other woman, any other Black person would experience. So, to me, not to acknowledge that would be part of the problem. I would be part of the reason why there's no change. The fact that I say that I'm Black before an athlete, I really stand on that," she said.

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Sha'Carri Richardson says she learned self-love, apologized to her community after doping ban

Sha'Carri Richardson at the Diamond League 2023

As mentioned earlier, Sha'Carri Richardson tweeted against Kamila Valieva's participation in the 2022 Winter Olympics. However, with time, she moved on and the disappointment subsided.

"How I show myself forgiveness is honestly by acknowledging it first, acknowledging the situation for what it is, acknowledging my responsibilities in it, and talking about it to the people I feel like it impacted besides myself," Richardson said to Teen Vogue.

After being ruled out from the Tokyo Olympics, she reached out to the community she confided in during hard times. She thought of apologizing to them and growing as a community together.

"I apologized to them first. I felt like they had to hold my shame as well, in a way — or my guilt, in a way. Acknowledging them made me feel like it was okay within myself… And [I] actually allowed myself to feel those emotions," Richardson said.