The International Olympic Committee has responded to Sha’Carri Richardson’s claims that there is a double standard in the way they handled her failed drug test at the Tokyo Olympics and their treatment of Russian skater Kamila Valieva at the Beijing Olympics.
“Richardson’s positive doping test was discovered on 19 June, and the result was received before the start of the Olympics. She was suspended for a month. There is nothing in common between these two cases,” the committee writes. “This Games, which has not concluded, concerns an issue in December. She is in the [center] of a lot of speculation. It must be very tough for her.
“We of course are in touch with the team, her welfare is the team’s first priority, and obviously we are very careful of that but there’s only so much that we can do.”
Valieva, 15, tested positive for the heart drug trimetazidine. The drug increases oxygen flow to the heart, which can also enhance an athlete’s performance by limiting rapid swings in blood pressure.
She was still allowed to compete in the women’s figure skating competition at the 2022 Beijing Games despite failing the test.
“Can we get a solid answer on the difference of her situation and mines? My mother died and I can’t run and was also favored to place top 3. The only difference I see is I’m a black young lady,” Richardson tweeted at the time.
Richardson won the 100 meters in June 2020 with a time of 10.86 seconds — coming in 0.13 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Javianne Oliver at the Olympic trials.
The athlete faced backlash for testing positive marijuana- a non-performance-enhancing drug. She was just 21 and at the time, second only in the world to Jamaican star Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, and was lauded as the “female Usain Bolt.”
