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Sha’Carri Richardson staring down her opponents just before crossing the finish line and winning her first Olympic gold medal was one of the most memorable moments captured at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
“I may have to put it up in my house,” Richardson said of what is now known as the “Sha’Carri Stare.”
Even though Richardson agreed the image is iconic—captured mid-stride during the 4x100m relay—and belongs in the Louvre, the Olympian clarified that the side-eye was directed at no one. Her focus was solely on herself.
“I looked over and I just knew that no matter what was going on, there was nobody that I was going to allow—even myself—to be in front of me,” Richardson said in an interview with Refinery29. “I wasn’t going to allow myself to not cross that finish line in first place and not get that medal, or to let down those ladies and the support we received when it comes to us crossing the finish line in first place as Team USA.”
Although the storyline of the Texas sprinter versus her opponents has been proven inaccurate, Richardson’s mindset of her versus herself shows her admirable motivation as an athlete and competitor.
“We just knew that if we were our very best and executed, we had the confidence and the faith,” she said. “Not even just confidence, but the faith that we had in the practices that we put in, in the ability that each lady had, and also the trust that we had in each other. We knew that no matter what, we were going to do our very best and ultimately deliver the gold.”
“And so I literally just trusted every single body before me, and it almost was like a chain reaction.”
Running in fourth position, behind Melissa Jefferson, Twanisha Terry, and 200m gold medalist Gabby Thomas, Richardson said, “Once I got the stick, it was like the baton was just full of love and determination.”
“It’s for a nation. It’s for a world that understands and believes in us four. So getting this thing and running down the track, I knew there was no option but to do my best, and I did my best.”
“That was not a plan, that was not scripted,” Richardson quipped. “I would honestly say that moment was just a full-circle moment, just embracing everything—not even just what had happened in the general moment to make it on the podium, but just embracing the entire journey of being a human and growing, not even just as an athlete, but as a woman, as a spirit.”
