Sha’Carri Richardson captures 1st world title with victory in stacked 100M race

In one of the most stacked 100-metre races of all-time, American Sha’Carri Richardson emerged as the world champion.

Richardson, racing in Lane 9, came from behind in the final 10 metres, crossing the finish line in a championship-record time of 10.65 seconds for her first career world title on Monday in Budapest.

“I just felt that I executed an amazing race for myself not even knowing where the other ladies were. I was by myself in my own world which honestly has been like that all my life,” she said.

For most of the race there appeared to a Jamaican duel for gold between Shericka Jackson, the reigning 200 world champion, and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the 22-time world and Olympic medallist entering this meet.

Jackson wound up with silver at 10.72 seconds, while Fraser-Pryce added a bronze to her medal collection at 10.77 seconds.

But it was Richardson who snuck up in the outside lane, leaving both Jamaicans stunned.

“When she’s in Lane 9, I think that helped her because she’s on an island, she’s by herself. Now there’s no longer this threat of all these bodies around you she really has to be concerned about,” said CBC Sports analyst and former world champion Perdita Felicien.

Richardson, 23, was listed as a 5-1 underdog even though she came in as the American champion and bested Jackson the previous two times they met this year.

And she even looked stunned herself, immediately covering her mouth with her hands before celebrating with the American flag draped around her.

“I’m here, I told y’all,” she told the track announcer right after the race. “I’m not back, I’m better.”

It’s been a twisting journey to the top of the podium for Richardson, who was famously suspended for the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for marijuana, which she said she took in order to cope with the death of her mother and the pressure of Olympic qualification. A year later, she missed out on qualifying for worlds at home in Eugene, Ore.

The stakes were set about an hour before the final, when the Ivory Coast’s Marie-Josée Ta Lou, Richardson and Jackson produced the fastest heat ever in the semifinals.

“Those three had to really had to run super hard and I felt that would change the complexion of any final we did see,” Felicien said.

Ta Lou, who entered worlds unbeaten in 10 100-metre races this season, won that heat in 10.79 seconds.

Richardson actually missed out on an automatic qualifying spot for the final, though her time of 10.84 seconds then was good also for third overall.

In the women’s 400 hurdles, 20-year-old Savannah Sutherland of Borden, Sask., qualified for Tuesday’s semifinals by finishing fourth in her heat.

Sutherland, the University of Michigan athlete who won the NCAA title in the discipline, clocked a time of 55.85 seconds.

“It feels kinda crazy just seeing people who I looked up to in high school and now racing against them on the same track,” said Sutherland, who made world championship debut.

Brooke Overholt, of St. Mary’s Ont., finished seventh in her heat in 56.2 seconds and did not advance.

In women’s pole vault, Alysha Newman of Delaware, Ont., and Saskatoon’s Anicka Newell both failed to qualify for the finals.

Newman had a top vault of 4.5 metres while Newell’s best was 4.35 metres.

The automatic qualifying mark of 4.65 metres was met by 12 vaulters, which was enough to fill out the field for the final.

Newman is returning from a serious concussion last spring that sidelined her for months. She won a Canadian title last month in Langley, B.C., with a vault of 4.73 metres.

“You hope to come, savour anything you can,” said Newman. “My neurologist would say that we weren’t focusing on this year, but I got a little greedy and said I can do it this year and next year. He won’t be disappointed, but I will be.”

Lyles breaks down on podium

Meanwhile, all the brashness and bravado melted away when the gold medal finally went around Noah Lyles’ neck.

The 100 winner doubled over and broke into tears at the ceremony, held the day after he defied the experts and earned the title of “World’s Fastest Man” with a victory in what has traditionally been his second-best race.

After Lyles composed himself, he stood up and took a deep bow to the crowd amassed at the medals plaza set up outside the stadium.

The entire moment has hit him quicker than he ever anticipated. Much quicker than winning his back-to-back world 200 titles.

Lyles finished the race Sunday night in 9.83 seconds to edge Letsile Tebogo, the 20-year-old from Botswana, and bronze medallist Zharnel Hughes of Britain.

Tebogo and Hughes were with Lyles on the medal stand and comforted him when he broke down. Lyles has been open and honest about the mental health struggles he’s endured, especially in the post-COVID atmosphere of the Tokyo Olympics.

“[My mental health has] definitely been growing stronger and stronger since 2021,” Lyles said. “Every year I feel that I’ve been able to continuously add on to layers of security, I guess you could call it, or just good health.

“It’s really put a perspective on how I’ve been able to view things.”

Lyles has a chance for the first men’s 100-200 double at the worlds or the Olympics since Usain Bolt accomplished the feat in 2016 at the Rio de Janeiro Games.

The 26-year-old Lyles has a 200 time in mind, too — 19.10 seconds. That would break Bolt’s record mark of 19.19 in 2009.

Discus drama

Also, Olympic champion Daniel Stahl won a dramatic world championship discus gold with the final throw just minutes after Kristjan Ceh thought he had done enough to retain his title when his final throw edged him in front of the Swede.

“I thought, what the hell, now I’m going to answer directly,” Stahl told reporters. “It was just to dig in for king and country I’m very proud of how I handled it. This was my best throw ever. It’s very cool.

“It’s like I got a bit of ‘sisu’ in me,” he added, using a Finnish word for fighting spirit. “I’m not going to give up, instead I’m going to get bigger in the moments.”

On a hot, sultry night Slovenian Ceh led with 69.27 metres in the second round before Stahl went 10 centimetres further in the fourth.

With only two throwers left to go, Ceh finally crossed the 70 mark with 70.02 but showed only a muted celebration, knowing just what a competitor his big rival is.

Sure enough, Stahl launched the disc 71.46 – the second-longest throw of the year and a championship record – to take gold and add it to the world title he won in 2019 in Doha.

Lithuania’s 20-year-old Mykolas Alekna, whose father won the world title twice, took bronze with 68.85.

3-peat for Holloway in 110-meter hurdles

Posing for the cameras, Grant Holloway counted out his back-to-back-to-back 110-meter hurdles world titles, raising one finger, then another, then another.

It was as easy as “1, 2, 3.” Holloway made his race look almost that simple, too.

The American bolted to a fast start and never looked back Monday night at world championships, breezing to a victory in 12.96 seconds that elevated him into elite company. Holloway joined Greg Foster as the only 110 hurdler to win three straight world titles.

“Remarkable,” Holloway exclaimed.

Before Holloway entered the scene, the mighty American hurdlers were in a little bit of a hurdling funk (a funk for them anyway). They’d gone two straight worlds without a gold in the 110.

That just wasn’t like them.

“We were in a drought,” said Holloway, who won his first world title in Doha in 2019 and again last summer in Oregon. “It was my goal is to get us out of the drought and I called it a restoration phase. Now that we’re out of the restoration phase, it’s making sure I’m there.”

He edged out reigning Olympic champion Hansle Parchment of Jamaica by .11 seconds. Holloway’s U.S. teammate, Daniel Roberts, finished with the bronze.

Live coverage of the entire meet is available on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem through Sunday.

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