Sha'Carri Richardson is flying in early season tune-up — and that's great for track and field

This is a column by Morgan Campbell, who writes opinion for CBC Sports. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

If you missed Sha'Carri Richardson's blazing-fast 100-metre opener last Saturday, I can't blame you. 

Like many springtime track meets, the Miramar Invitational didn't air on television; if you watched in real time, you were an avid enough track fan to find the live stream. It's the track and field equivalent of a spring training game — major-league talent in an early-season tune-up. Average sports fans don't build their Saturdays around events like that.

Or maybe you missed the race because Richardson finished so quickly. Aided by a brisk tailwind (4.1 metres per second), the 23-year-old sprint star clocked 10.57 seconds. For context, that result is the fourth-best ever, under any conditions, trailing only wind-legal results from Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (10.60), Elaine Thompson-Herah (10.54), and Florence Griffith Joyner, whose 10.49-second world record is widely believed to have benefited from a busted wind gauge.

(FloJo's wind reading was 0.0 m/s, which nearly never happens. Carl Lewis's sizzling 9.78, run on the same afternoon, on the same track, had a 5.2 m/s tailwind.)

Further context: Richardson beat a world class field by a wide margin.

Either way, the run settled doubts about how she had spent her off season. Apparently, she invested in the first half of her race, building strong early phases to match her eye-popping top-end speed.

But when you're Sha'Carri Richardson posting a big result in a relatively low-stakes meet, questions arise, inevitably.

Too fast, too soon?

Is this the year she finally, finally, finally runs her best races on the biggest stages?

For her sake, let's hope so. If you're capable of breaking 10.7, you have the ability to win a medal. Richardson's challenge is peaking for big meets, and executing from there.

Does any of this matter if Richardson can't outrun Thomson-Herah, Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson?

Of course it does, if only to highlight how special that trio is. Running in the 10.6 neighbourhood is one feat; doing it under world-final pressure is another. And repeating year after year is a rare achievement that more track fans — both hardcores and Olympic-year drive-bys — should appreciate.

Still, on the cusp of what could become an epic outdoor season, with a deep roster of women's sprinters jockeying for three world championship medals, Richardson's appeal to a broad cross-section of fans isn't in question. Many aficionados can't stand her, because she talks a lot of trash, and earns attention that her performance on the world stage doesn't seem to merit.

Good for the sport

But the crowds that form around Richardson at early season meets, and the people tweeting videos of her 10.57, signal that she reaches two audiences the sport at large struggles to retain — young people and mainstream sports fans. Whether you support Richardson, or resent her, you have to acknowledge that the sport is stronger when she's running well.

First, let's return to the numbers, because, on the stopwatch, they're stunning. With neutral wind, Richardson's 10.57 converts to 10.77 seconds, according to this calculator. That's a podium-worthy time.

On social media, a similarly impressive set of figures. Nearly half a million followers on Twitter, and 2.2 million on Instagram, where she even overshadows male sprint stars like Andre De Grasse (384,000) and world 100-metre champion Fred Kerley (1 million). 

The most widely watched instalment of the track and field video series we did last summer for CBC Sports' YouTube channel? This one, published in the lead up to Canadian and U.S. nationals — 476,000 views and counting.

When the numbers first started running up, the braintrust at CBC Sports' digital platform asked me why this video in particular attracted so much attention? Was it De Grasse, who had just laid down some season's best times? Or was it my superhero T-shirt?

The answer, of course, was Sha'Carri Richardson, whose first name alone is an SEO gold mine. 

Some track fans are over it. When World Athletics tweeted a poster hyping an upcoming meet in Botswana, where Richardson and Fraser-Pryce are slated to run, a vocal contingent of fans protested the very idea that the Greatest Women's 100-metre Sprinter Ever should share a marquee with an athlete who had never made a world team.

Always in the spotlight

But for every observer she has turned off, Richardson has several more curious and, most importantly, invested. 

This past Saturday, Richardson's good friend Aleia Hobbs ran 10.87 seconds in Baton Rouge, the best wind-legal time in the world this year. But which of the two former LSU Tigers had video of their race tweeted out by mainstream sports media personalities like Robert Griffin III and Emmanuel Acho?

Richardson, whose late-race celebration might have cost her a couple hundredths of a second.

Granted, Acho, the former NFL linebacker turned sports TV debater, has issued some truly putrid takes. But he understands track and field, and reaches a wide range of general sports fans. If Richardson is on his radar, she's on Acho's audience's, too. 

Successfull meet and greet

Meet directors get it.

The people running the Texas Relays organized a Richardson meet-and-greet the day before she raced. Same in Miramar, where Richardson drew crowds long before she lined up.

In the U.S., stakeholders seem to have figured out that "My Sport is Your Sport's Punishment," doesn't attract people to track and field. It likely does the opposite, which is a good way to dry out your talent pipeline. So in recent years we've seen video series and ad campaigns aimed at keeping young people engaged.

They're trying, but Richardson is succeeding, just by being herself, and flashing her immense talent often enough to make us wonder what she could achieve at her very best.

Doesn't mean the sport needs her. The Jamaican trio who swept the 100-metre medals last summer are still on the scene, while sprinters like Hobbs, Melissa Jefferson and NCAA indoor champ Julien Alfred seem poised for breakthroughs. Factor in Abby Steiner, who can lay down fast times at any distance up to 400 metres, and the unprecedented depth in women's sprints becomes apparent.

Plug Richardson back into that equation, and the women's 100 goes from intriguing to fascinating. A gifted wildcard with a big following and even bigger personality? A 10.7 sprinter who doesn't mind playing the villain? A character who, if she stays healthy, could fuel plotlines that last until the 2024 Olympics?

Sign me up.

If you don't like Richardson, fine. But if you don't like what she brings to the sport, maybe you don't like the sport enough.