U.S. sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson was easily the biggest name headed to the Tokyo Olympics, not only because os what she was doing in track, but because she got suspended for testing positive for a banned substance, which was marijuana.
In a tweet shared on Friday, Richardson appeared to ruffle a few feathers with a simple question regarding her absence.
“Missing me yet?” she wrote to a mixed response.
One person responded with, “Was she planning to exert all her energy in the heats?!”
“If you don’t like what I tweet you can definitely unfollow me,” she wrote. “If you choose to think of all my tweets as petty and shady then you should unfollow me showing your own character but you don’t use my tweets to do it. … Have a day.”
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Retired four-time Olympic gold medalist sprinter Michael Johnson chimed in. “This is an interesting tweet sent on the day we see the women in Toko running blazing fast times in the prelims to making the women’s 100 final look like it could be one of the greatest with who’s here,” he wrote.
More reactions:
After the qualifying heats for the women’s 100-meter dash Friday, front-runners refused to discuss Richardson and her suspension from the sport.
“I don’t want to talk about Sha’Carri,” Nigerian sprinter Blessing Okagbare said after winning her heat, according to USA Today. “Regardless of who is here and who is not here, we are gonna compete. Everybody here is great as well. I think everybody here is great. Regardless of who is here and not here.”
Richardson won the 100-meter race at the US Olympic trials and set a new American record at 10.86. However, following the event, Richardson tested positive for marijuana, and her time and record were voided. As a result, she was suspended from the sport for 30 days.
Jamaicans Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Elaine Thompson-Herah would not speak about Richardson either. When asked individually, both responded, “No comment.”
“There’s rivalry with everybody,” Fraser-Pryce said. “All the female athletes are showing up, and they’re competing. So I don’t focus on just one individual. I believe that, you know, once you step to the line, you’re a competitor.”
