Sha’Carri Richardson’s gold medal odds just got stronger. Jamaican sprinter Shericka Jackson, expected to be one of the top contenders in the 100-meter race, has dropped out and will focus on the 200.
“Yes I’m only running the 200-meter here,” she said Wednesday morning at an event at Puma House in Paris. “Just period.”
Jackson added that in Paris, her third Olympics, she’s looking to just focus on running her fastest times. After experiencing all the international frills in 2016 and the COVID-19 quirks in 2021, she’s now used to the Olympic stage.
News of Jackson dropping the 100 was first shared by Jamaican team manager Ludlow Watts with Reuters. Watts declined to provide a reason. But on July 9 in Hungary, in her final race before the Olympics, Jackson pulled up with a calf cramp.
Jackson’s withdrawal comes two months after injury forced two-time reigning Olympic champion Elaine Thompson-Herah out of the Olympic games.
Richardson, who hasn’t lost this year in the 100, is making her Olympic debut this week in Paris and is in arguably the best form of her career.
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Jackson was one of Richardson’s greatest competitors in the vaunted dash. Jackson — who won a gold medal on Jamaica’s 4×100 team at the Tokyo Olympics and a bronze medal 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 is 11.03 seconds.
Jackson and Richardson split their last two head-to-head meetings. Richardson beat the field in the 2023 World Championships in Budapest. Her stunning come-from-behind victory in 10.65 seconds is featured in the Netflix documentary “Sprint.” Jackson finished second at 10.72.
But Jackson got revenge a month later at the 2023 Prefontaine Classic, running a wind-aided 10.70 to beat Richardson, who finished fourth in 10.80.
Richardson — the pride of Dallas and face of North Texas track — will still have to deal with legendary Jamaica sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Price, who is in her fifth and perhaps final Olympics and is certainly looking to cap her stellar career with a gold medal.
Jackson’s complete focus on the 200 meters, where she has been aiming to break Florence Griffith-Joyner’s decades-old world record, is now the problem of Gabby Thomas, America’s favorite in the 200.
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(Photo: Stephen Pond / Getty Images for World Athletics)