There are very few athletes more anodyne or sainted than the sprinter Allyson Felix, who is currently taking her victory lap around the United States after winning her tenth and eleventh Olympic medals in Tokyo — the most in track by any American ever.
The latest stop on the tour was Tuesday night’s taping of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show, currently being guest-hosted by Stephen A. Smith.
Toward the end of a standard Felix interview, Smith asked about Sha’Carri Richardson, the sprinter who tested positive for marijuana at the U.S. Olympic Trials and recently returned to competition with a last-place finish against the 100-meter Olympic medalists.
“She’s obviously been through so much,” Felix said, referring to the death of Richardson’s mother, which the younger sprinter has said she suddenly learned about from a reporter. “I hope that people rally around her. Obviously she has a great personality and she’s brought a lot of attention to the sport. I think she’ll be in the sport for a very long time. I think more than anything, for all athletes, there’s so much that goes into it — we just, you know, give her the support that she needs.”
A totally gracious answer, if not a full-throated call to remove marijuana from the banned substances list. Richardson reacted with the trademark spice that is turning her into the rarest sort of track athlete in the country: an actual year-round celebrity. (That is not to say she is a mere curiosity; she is very much a world-class sprinter. While she was thoroughly smoked by the three Jamaican medalists over the weekend, her 10.72 personal best would have finished second in that race.)
On her Instagram story this morning, in a post that’s still up, Richardson clearly responded to Felix. “Encouraging words on tv shows are just as real as well nothing at all,” she wrote.
She’s not wrong exactly, although Felix was far more supportive than Olympic gold and silver medalists Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, who repeatedly refused to comment when asked about Richardson at the Olympics.
Even so, it’s clear what the Jamaicans think of Richardson. Fraser-Pryce laughed right at the camera when NBC interviewed Richardson after her last-place finish on Saturday. “Count me out if you want to. Talk all the s—t you want. Because I’m here to stay. I’m not done. I’m the 6th fastest woman in this game — ever. And can’t nobody ever take that from me,” Richardson said then. After the disastrous race, Richardson changed her Twitter avatar to a shot of Fraser-Pryce laughing at her.
The only thing to say here if you like track is: Thank God. The sport can’t be all Allysons Felix.