The 2024 Paris Olympics women’s 4×100 meter relay event didn’t just secure Sha’Carri Richardson her first gold medal — it also made her go viral.
The track and field athlete, 24, gave her competitors a hilarious side-eye while running the anchor leg for Team USA during the race on Friday, August 9. Quickly surpassing her fellow runners, Richardson was seen staring down the competition for a few seconds before crossing the finish line.
“I may have to put it up in my house,” Richardson said of the now-iconic shot in an interview with Refinery29’s Unbothered published on Monday, August 12.
When the interviewer suggested it be hung in the Louvre, Richardson added, “You know what I’m saying! I’m right down the street.”
The Olympian said her glance was like “a mirror on that side of me, and I’m just looking at a version of myself that nobody but me could see,” recalling, “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. I know that sounds crazy, but I was in that lane and feeling like I’m always my biggest competitor, [so I had to] leave my best on the track.”
She further explained that she wanted to show that “the hard work that all of us ladies in that 4x[100] put in was not going to be in vain,” noting, “I wasn’t going to even 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 that we received when it comes to us crossing the finish line, in first place as Team USA.”
Richardson won gold alongside teammates Melissa Jefferson, Twanisha Terry and Gabby Thomas. Richardson got emotional during the group’s medal ceremony, shedding several tears as the U.S. national anthem played throughout the stadium.
“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 including what had happened in the general moment to make it on the podium, but just embracing the entire journey of being just a human and growing, not even just as an athlete, but as a woman, as a spirit.”
With the Paris Games officially over, Richardson told the outlet that this was only the “beginning” of her Olympic journey. “There’s nothing but up from here,” she declared.
Richardson took home a total of two Olympic medals in Paris, earning silver in the women’s 100-meter final. She celebrated her individual win via Instagram on August 4, captioning pics of herself after the race with three silver hearts.
Three years before her Paris victories, Richardson was disqualified from attending the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for marijuana use. “I just want to take responsibility for my actions, I know what I did,” she said during a July 2021 episode of Today. “I know what I’m supposed to do and what I’m allowed not to do, and I still made that decision. But I’m not making an excuse or looking for any empathy in my case.”
