Monday, 10 May 2021
The 100 metres, as expected, provided the highlight of yesterday s Golden Gala meeting on the Mount San Antonio College track in Walnut, California.
But it was the women s racing, rather than the men s, that caught the attention as 21-year-old home sprinter Sha Carri Richardson, with hair of brightest blue, confirmed her status as an early phenomenon of the Olympic season by clocking 10.74sec in the heats.
With a 1.1 metres-per-second wind at her back, she then won the final in 10.77 into a 1.2mps headwind.
According to the statistician s reckoning that would have been worth 10.69 in still conditions - faster than the 10.72 she clocked earlier this season to go sixth on the all-time list. If you want to push it, it would have been 10.58 with the maximum allowable tailwind of 2mps for record purposes.